Beyond the Shadows
by SilenceintheLibrary13
Summary: Sequel to "Out of the Shadows." Completely different storyline, but would help to read that first. A couple is found murdered, bringing up memories of Hoyt, but it soon becomes clear that this case is unlike anything they've seen before-and could have disastrous implications for Jane and Maura. Possible triggers, including mentions of sexual assault.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 _"This morning, with her, having coffee."_

 _-Johnny Cash, describing paradise_

Jane finished making the bed, just the way Maura liked it, and went down to the kitchen. Her lovely wife was busy working her complicated espresso machine, smiling to herself in anticipation. Jane took in the snugly fitting dress Maura had on and gave a low whistle.

"You're looking extra breathtaking today," she remarked, wrapping her arms around Maura from behind.

Maura leaned back against her. "I know you like this dress on me, so I thought I'd wear it today, since it's a special day."

"Mmm." _Holy shit, what's special about today?_ Maura turned in her arms and kissed her. _Think! What is today? It's the seventeenth, so that means—_ "Yes, our six-month anniversary!"

"We've been married half a year now," Maura said happily. "Although technically it's not an _anniversary_ , because the word 'anniversary' comes from the Latin ' _anniversarius_ ,' which means 'returning yearly,' and it hasn't been a whole year yet. Anyway, I made us reservations at Mauricio's tonight. Maybe before we go, you can change into something that will take _my_ breath away?"

"Do I have anything that does that?"

" _Yes_."

"Well, get it out and I'll wear it. I never look as good as you do though."

"You do to me." Maura turned back to her espresso machine.

Jane glanced at her watch. She supposed she could stand to wait for Maura's espresso instead of making her own coffee. "You want an omelet?" she asked, crossing to the refrigerator.

"Yes, please."

Jane pulled the ingredients out of the well-stocked fridge—very different from when she lived by herself—and started on two omelets, veggie for Maura and bacon and cheddar for herself. This was one of her favorite times of day: the quiet mornings before work, on days when they had gotten up early enough not to have to rush, when Maura was busy with her coffee porn and everything was peaceful. Jane loved to watch Maura when she was concentrating, whether it was in her lab or here in the kitchen. She especially loved it when Maura stuck her tongue between her lips while focusing extra hard. Seeing her do it now, she couldn't help but chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Maura asked.

"Nothing, you're just really cute when you stick your tongue out like that."

"I'm not sticking my tongue out!"

"You were, just a second ago. You always do when you're concentrating really hard."

Maura frowned. "I do not!"

Jane laughed. "You obviously don't realize you're doing it, but you do. You even do it when you're fucking me!"

"Really?" said Maura is dismay.

"Oh, don't start getting self-conscious because I mentioned it," Jane told her. "I think it's adorable, and I would be really sad if you stopped doing it." She flipped the omelets onto plates, turned the stove off, and walked around the counter to plant a kiss on Maura's head. "Now eat your omelet before it gets cold."

Maura smiled at the kiss, poured two cups of espresso, and sat down at the table with Jane, humming contentedly to herself. Jane watched her reading the newspaper, taking a mental snapshot of the moment, as she often did. She and Maura had experienced plenty of excitement in their time. They'd solved many a difficult murder case together, been on exotic vacations, even combined two wildly different wedding fantasies into one big dream wedding. But it was the quiet moments like this that Jane actually lived for.

Jane sometimes felt like it was reckless to love someone as much as she loved Maura. It made her feel vulnerable. Too much of her own happiness depended not only on Maura's presence, but on Maura's happiness as well. If anything happened to her, Jane would be destroyed, and everyone knew that. She had hoped, in a way, that settling into married life would make her love for Maura a little quieter, that she could feel the sort of calm love for her that she did for her family, but it hadn't worked out that way so far. It only seemed to grow stronger over time, and she couldn't do anything about it. Not only was she incapable of loving Maura any less, but she knew how much Maura depended on that love. She deserved it so much, and no one else was offering.

XXX

When she got to work, Jane slumped at her desk and immediately did a computer search for flower delivery. She was browsing a local shop that advertised same-day delivery when Korsak walked in.

"You been fighting with Maura?" he asked, glancing at the screen.

"No, not at all. I'd just forgotten about today being our six-month anniversary, or whatever the hell you call it. I gotta send her something so she doesn't notice that I forgot."

Korsak chuckled and walked to his desk. "It's nice to know it isn't only men who forget anniversaries."

"I didn't totally forget; I just failed to plan in advance this time. It's the first time this has happened to me. I think it'll be easier when we only have to celebrate once a year instead of every month. I mean, people don't do monthly things after the first year, right? She's not going to be making a big deal someday that we've been married three hundred forty-six months?"

"Normally I would say no, but you did marry Maura, so it's possible."

Jane groaned. "Why won't they let me send Belgian chocolate-covered strawberries for same-day delivery?"

Korsak shook his head, amused. "You should have been paying attention to the date yesterday." He started in on his paperwork, which was all either of them had scheduled for that day. It was technically good news, because it meant there hadn't been any new murders, but a day of paperwork was enough to make Jane _want_ to commit murder.

"I'm putting an alert in my phone for next month. Three days in advance, just to be safe." She opened her phone's calendar app and saw a reminder for that afternoon. "Crap, I forgot Hawthorne's kid is coming to see me today. She needs to interview a cop for some sort of school project."

"Why isn't she talking to someone in his department?"

"They don't have any women. She specifically asked for a _lady_ cop."

"And they couldn't find one?"

" _Very_ funny. So anyway, I have until school lets out to think of what I'm going to say to her that's honest without sounding completely jaded."

Jane barely knew Officer Hawthorne, as he was relatively new to the BPD (a transfer from somewhere, she couldn't remember where) and didn't work in her unit, but there had been stories about his tragic past floating around ever since his transfer. She knew he and his daughter were the only survivors of a house fire a decade ago that had claimed the rest of the family. Local authorities believed the fire had been deliberately set, but they had never found the person responsible. The girl would have been five or six at the time. Jane wondered how much she remembered of the fire.

When she got the call from the front desk that afternoon that she had a visitor in the lobby, she was more than happy to abandon her paperwork and go down to meet Haley Hawthorne. The teenager wasn't quite what she was expecting. Generally when a kid wanted to interview a cop for school, it was because they wanted to be a cop someday, but it was very difficult to imagine Haley in that line of work. She was almost unbearably shy, with her willowy frame folded in on itself and blonde hair falling in her face. She would glance nervously at Jane with her big brown eyes (well, one of them; the other was behind her long hair) and then look away quickly as if she had done something wrong. Jane tried to chat with her on the elevator ride to the third floor, but her questions were met with single-word answers.

When she arrived in the bullpen with her charge, she was surprised to see a large and very colorful bouquet of flowers on Frankie's desk.

"Um, do you have a new girlfriend, or is Ma sending you flowers at work now?" she asked him.

Frankie's nervous glance in her direction was similar to Haley's expression. "Turns out they're for you," he said, hastily passing her the card that accompanied the flowers.

"From Maura, right?" She stuffed the card in her pocket. Based on the deep shade of red Frankie was turning, she surmised that whatever Maura had written was best not read in front of people.

"Yeah," he said, looking down at his desk.

"So what are you doing reading my card from Maura?"

"Look, after you left some guy showed up saying he had a flower delivery for Rizzoli. He didn't say _which_ Rizzoli, and I was the only one here. So I took them and checked the card to see who they were for."

"Who the hell would have been sending _you_ flowers?"

"I don't know! It could happen!"

Jane carried the flowers to her desk, chuckling. Knowing Maura, she'd probably written out in detail what she planned to do to Jane's vagina tonight. Maybe having to read that would teach Frankie to mind his own damn business in the future.

She pulled up a chair for Haley and sat down at her desk, watching the girl pull a folder and notebook out of her backpack. Haley went through a list of standard questions off of a worksheet. They were pretty dry stuff, like, "Why did you decide to become a police officer?" "What do you like most about your job?" "What is the most challenging part of your job?" At the end of the list was a more interesting question that Haley had added herself: "Is it hard to get respect as a female cop?"

Jane liked this question. It meant that Haley was actually at least somewhat interested in the profession, and it explained why she wanted to talk to a woman.

"Sometimes," she admitted. "In the Academy, and when I first started, and again every time I moved to a new department, I felt like I had to try twice as hard to earn everyone's respect as I would have if I were a man. Every time I made a mistake, showed fear, or failed to catch a suspect, there were people who assumed it was because I'm a woman. So I had to learn to be fearless, never make mistakes, never let anyone get away from me. Now I've been in Homicide for years, and I've pretty much earned my colleagues' respect, but I still run into people in the field who don't take me seriously as a cop because I'm female. Even women, sometimes."

"So how do you get them to take you seriously?"

"Well, the gun helps." She studied her charge carefully. "So are you thinking about being a cop when you grow up?"

Haley nodded. "I want to save people."

 _Like she couldn't save her family_. "Good for you."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Save a lot of people."

Jane leaned against her desk, pondering the question. She had to admit, when she was Haley's age, she'd had the same vision of what being a cop would be like.

"The thing is," she began carefully, "when you work in Homicide, you never really know how many people you're saving, or who they are. There are situations where you get to an intended murder victim while they're still alive and you're able to protect them, but more often you're just putting away bad guys who might or might not kill again if you didn't. And you hope, when you put them away, that you are saving people's lives in the process. But there's no way of really knowing, most of the time. You just have to believe that you've made the world a slightly safer place." Jane looked up to see Hawthorne coming into the room. "Here's your dad," she said, smiling at Haley. Haley began hastily putting her things back in her bag.

"Thanks for helping my girl with her homework, Detective Rizzoli," he said, smiling at them both. He pulled a dollar out of his pocket and handed it to his daughter. "There's a soda machine down the hall, to the left," he told her. She ran off and he turned back to Jane. "Secret admirer?" he said, indicated her flowers.

"Not so secret," she told him. "I've been married for six months, as of today."

"I didn't know you were married," he said. "Who's the lucky guy?"

She reached around the flowers and pulled out the framed wedding picture she kept on her desk, showing her and Maura at Fenway.

"Is that the medical examiner?" he asked.

" _Chief_ medical examiner of the Commonwealth," she said proudly.

"I've never met her, but I think I've seen her around. Heard people talk about her."

"Good things, I'm sure," said Jane sharply. She knew people talked about Maura's eccentricities behind her back, and she did her best to squash such talk.

"Of course," he said with a wry smile. "Anyway, better go find my daughter. Thanks again, Rizzoli!" He took off, passing Maura as she came in, although he didn't seem to notice her. Maura made a beeline for Jane, carrying the box of Belgian chocolates Jane had ordered for her.

"I got the flowers and chocolates you sent me," she said excitedly, as if it were the first time Jane had done such a thing. That was the thing about Maura: no matter how many times you did something for her, she was still just as thrilled as the first time. Nothing ever got old.

"And I got yours," said Jane, motioning towards the bouquet next to her computer. "I haven't read your card yet, but Frankie did, and it must have been something good because he's traumatized."

Maura's jaw dropped. "Why would Frankie read it?" she asked, glancing towards her brother-in-law, who was pretending to be too busy to notice Maura. "It was only meant for you."

"Yeah, well, the dork thought someone might have sent _him_ flowers. I was out of the room."

Maura sat in the chair Haley had vacated. "Would you like a chocolate?"

Jane took a chocolate. "Maybe you should offer one to Frankie too," she teased. Maura started to get up to do exactly that, but Jane pulled her back down. "Kidding," she said.

Maura bit into a chocolate. "So who was that man you were talking to? I didn't recognize him."

"He's Hawthorne from Special Operations. He transferred after we were married, I think. He's moved around a bit. Sad story, really. He used to be military, and about ten years ago he did a tour in Iraq for like a year or so. His son was born while he was gone. He finally got home, got to meet his son for the first time, and then a few nights later, the house burned down. He was able to get his little girl out, but his wife, his sister, and his baby all died. And there might have been a third kid, but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, he decided to become a cop after that. Probably didn't want to have to be away from his daughter, since he's all she has left."

"That's so sad! Imagine getting your family back and then losing them again almost immediately."

"I know. It sucks. I don't think they ever found out who started the fire, either."

Maura thoughtfully picked up another chocolate. "So, you can read the card now."

Jane took the card out of her pocket and slid it out of the tiny envelope. Maura would have gotten a typewritten card with her flowers since Jane had ordered online, but this card was, of course, written out in Maura's flowing script.

 _My beautiful Jane-_

 _So far you have given me:_

 _6 years of friendship_

 _2 years of romance_

 _6 months of marriage_

 _And, as of this writing, 514 orgasms._

 _I look forward to seeing all of those numbers rise through the years._

 _I love you more each day._

 _-Your Maura_

Jane's eyebrows raised. "514? You've been counting?"

Maura shrugged. "I like to quantify things. But I wrote that a few days ago. The number is 517 now."

"I can't wait to see what you do when we break a thousand."

Maura's brow wrinkled. "Well, those are just the ones you've given me. If I add in the ones I've given you—"

"Maura." Jane put her hand over her wife's. "Let's finish this conversation at home."

"Oh. Right."

Jane squeezed her hand. "You're very sweet. And very, very direct."

Maura smiled. "I'd better get back downstairs. I'll see you in an hour!" She gave Jane a chaste peck on the cheek and hurried off.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was still dark when Maura woke up. She wasn't sure what had woken her. She had a panicked feeling as if she'd just escaped a nightmare, but she couldn't recall a dream. Jane was sound asleep beside her, sprawled on her stomach with her dark curls spread out over her pillow. They were both naked, as they had been celebrating six months of marriage well into the night. Maura had fallen asleep feeling blissful. She didn't know what was causing her dread now, but she couldn't escape the feeling that she was missing something, some important detail, and that not finding it was putting Jane at risk somehow.

She wracked her brain. She couldn't think of a logical reason to feel this way. They had both spent the previous day on paperwork. There were no new active cases, no impending trials that Jane would have to testify in, no random threats that Maura knew of. It was possible she'd had a dream she couldn't remember. Maura had a lot of dreams about Jane being hurt or in danger because she'd seen it happen so many times. And every time, it nearly destroyed her, but she would never ask Jane to take a less dangerous job. Being a homicide detective was a big part of who Jane _was_ ; to ask her to change was to wish a different kind of death on her. Maura knew what she was getting when she married Jane, and she fully accepted the situation. But she was still going to do everything in her power to protect Jane when necessary.

She didn't know what she could do about that right now, though, so she just reached out and gently moved Jane's hair out of her face before leaning down to kiss her forehead.

Jane stirred a little at this. "I'm tired, Maura," she mumbled. "There's no way I can get you to 600 tonight."

Maura broke into a smile. At least she knew what _Jane_ was dreaming about. But before she could settle back down beside her wife and try to snatch a little more sleep, both of their cell phones rang. Maura watched in amusement as Jane blearily patted around on the nightstand for her phone.

"Rizzoli," she said hoarsely when she'd finally found it.

Maura picked up her own phone. "Isles," she said brightly. "Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can." She hung up and smiled at her wife. "Guess we're starting early today."

"Yeah." Jane pushed her tousled hair out of her face and gazed up at Maura. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Wake up looking the same as you did when you went to bed. I've never even woken up looking human, in my life."

Maura shrugged. "You move around more in your sleep."

Jane wriggled into her robe and started to set off in search of work clothes, but then turned back. "Aren't you getting up?"

Maura sighed. "Yes. I just…have a bad feeling."

Jane squinted at her. "You look like Maura," she said, "but you don't sound like Maura. You have a _bad feeling_?"

"I woke up with it. I want to tell you to stay home today, but since I don't know what the bad feeling pertains to, I don't really know how to advise you. Maybe you'd be safer at work."

"Okay, this is turning into _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ real fast. _My_ wife doesn't just get a 'bad feeling' for no reason and try to plan her day around it."

"Intuition is simply when our brains gather and process information on a subconscious level. There may be a fully logical reason for my bad feeling that I just don't consciously understand yet."

"Oookay. So, what is does this bad feeling relate to?"

"You. I'm worried someone will hurt you."

"Who?"

"I'm not sure."

"Sweetie, you're freaking me out here."

"I'm sorry." Maura climbed out of bed and put on her own robe. "We have a double homicide. Let's get ready to go."

Maura was hypervigilant on the way to the crime scene. They had a 45-minute drive, as the murder had taken place in one of the new constructions on the outskirts of Boston.

"I hate this neighborhood," said Jane. "All the houses look practically the same."

"The houses literally look the same in our neighborhood."

"Yeah, well, at least in our neighborhood, they look _interesting_. These just look like boxes in different shades of blue and beige. I don't care how many kids we have, Maura. You're never going to get me to move out here."

Maura smiled. "This isn't the neighborhood I was thinking of moving to. I want a Victorian house."

"Mm. We can maybe work with that." They got out of the car and met Korsak in front of the house.

"It's a couple, so it might remind you of Hoyt a little," Korsak warned Jane. "But the MO's different. Everything's different."

Maura instinctively reached for Jane's hand. If someone was copying Hoyt, that would give her reason to be worried for Jane's safety, but it didn't explain why she had a bad feeling before the call even came in.

Jane took a deep breath. "Okay then, let's see it."

Korsak led them through the front door. A man, probably late twenties or early thirties, lay on the floor in pajamas with his throat slit.

"Looks like he might have just answered the door," said Jane, walking carefully around the body to look at it from all angles. "Except he's not right by the door. It's like he let the person in."

Maura knelt down beside the body. "Rigor's just starting in the face," she observed. "He's been dead about five or six hours."

"A neighbor noticed the front door was open, came over to check on them, saw his body," Korsak explained. "The wife's upstairs."

Maura finished her preliminary examination of the man's body and then followed Jane up to the master bedroom. Here was a completely different picture: the woman was sprawled on the bed, covers tangled around her, with multiple stab wounds to her chest and abdomen. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream.

Jane whistled to herself. "Looks like she was the main target," she said. "It takes a lot of rage to hold someone down and stab her that many times. This was personal."

As Maura examined the body, Jane walked around the room, the wheels in her head turning. "They're in bed. There's someone at the door, husband gets up to see who it is. He lets the killer in, so it has to be someone he trusts. The killer takes the husband out quickly, comes upstairs to find his main target, the wife. He must know her as well, because he hates her with a passion. He stabs her a zillion times and then goes back out the way he came in, leaving the door open."

Most of that sounded like wild speculation to Maura, but then, she wasn't a detective. She'd learned through the years that Jane was usually right, even if it did sound like she was jumping to conclusions.

"Do you think it could be connected to Hoyt in some way?" she asked.

Jane shook her head. "I don't think so, at least not right now. It's not similar enough, and it seems too personal. We need to look into who might have had a beef with the wife."

Maura nodded. She didn't see how her bad feeling could possibly be connected to this murder, which meant she still had no idea what had caused it.

XXX

"I know that look in your eyes," Jane told Maura as they drove to the BPD after finishing at the crime scene. "That hypervigilance. I've seen it on you before, and I've seen it in the mirror. I think I know what caused you to have a bad feeling when you woke up."

"What?"

"Honey, it's obviously PTSD-related. Something triggered you. That's all. It's not intuition."

Maura was quiet for a minute. "Just because I have some post-traumatic stress doesn't mean there can't be real danger in the present moment that I am unconsciously picking up on. Intuition is the result of experience."

"I know, sweetie, and I know it's really hard to tell if what you're experiencing is real or if it's just the PTSD. I'm not trying to put down your intuition; it's just that if it were because of something you'd actually seen recently, you'd be able to figure it out, wouldn't you?"

Maura looked down at her hands. "Maybe. But maybe I just haven't figured it out _yet_."

"And maybe you will, but until then, let's not let fear take over, okay? Whatever might have happened to make you nervous, we're safe right now. Everything's fine. I'm here with you, and we're just doing our normal thing. No one's threatening us."

Maura nodded. "You're right. I just can't stand the thought of anything happening to you again. I want to protect you."

"I know. I feel the same way about you. But I try not to let it keep me from enjoying you in the present."

Maura put her hand on Jane's knee. "I love you. And I _always_ enjoy you." She looked out at the sunrise, focusing on her breath, trying to convince herself that her feeling was just the result of lingering PTSD.

But the feeling wouldn't go away.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

That night, unsurprisingly, Jane dreamed about Hoyt. This dream didn't resemble any of her actual experiences with Hoyt; instead, he was doing to Jane and Maura what he usually did to couples. She was sitting on the couch in their living room, duct tape around her arms and wrists and knees, a teacup on her knee so he would know if she tried to move. He had Maura on the rug and was tearing her clothes off, planning to make Jane watch while he raped her. Maura was crying, but trying to be brave for Jane. Suddenly her eyes met Jane's, and Jane could see the tortured, haunting look in them, a look she had seen before. Jane's heart seized and she knew she had to do something, anything, to make it stop, even if it got them both killed. Without warning she lunged forward, launching herself off the couch and towards Hoyt, planning to bury her teeth in his throat and just start ripping.

"Jane!"

At the sound of Maura's voice, Jane found herself on her knees next to the bed, a throbbing in her kneecaps telling her she'd bruised them pretty badly. Suddenly Maura was beside her, touching her with gentle hands that were nothing like Hoyt.

"Jane, what happened?"

"Just a bad dream," Jane promised, touching Maura's silky hair to ground herself.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." What was she going to say? _Oh yes, I dreamed that you, my beloved wife, were about to be raped for, what would it be? The seventh time? Only you were conscious this time, and I was being forced to watch._

"Let's get you back in bed." Maura helped Jane up and settled her down on her pillow before climbing in beside her. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine, just bruised my knees a bit. And my dignity. I feel like an ass for falling out of bed at my age."

"It can happen at any age if your dream is vivid enough," Maura assured her. She knelt down and pressed a tender kiss to each kneecap. "Other things can cause it too. Certain pharmaceuticals. Seizures."

"Well, I'm not on pharmaceuticals, and I've never had a seizure." Jane lay still as Maura moved to kiss her face, then planted a series of light kisses along Jane's jawline, her shoulder, down her arm. These kisses weren't seductive; they were meant to be comforting. And they were.

Jane had never known such sweetness before, and doubted she ever would again.

She gazed at Maura's dark outline, appreciating her beauty even when she could hardly see her. Maura was just so…pure. Unsullied, in spite of everything she'd seen and experienced. Jane supposed that her experiences _had_ changed her somewhat. She no longer possessed the same wide-eyed innocence she'd had when Jane first met her, and she wasn't quite so trusting anymore, except with people she knew well. But overall, her nature was the same. She loved without inhibition, found joy in every possible situation, and gave without expecting anything in return. Jane didn't feel worthy of her, but there was no denying that she made Maura happy. Maura looked at her the way you could only look at the person who had made all your dreams come true. The only thing Jane could possibly do was devote her life to trying to be the person Maura already believed she was.

"Do you think you'll be able to get back to sleep? I can make you some tea if you want." Maura was leaning over Jane, smoothing her hair back from her face gently, as though Jane were the most precious thing in the world. Maura's hair was slightly damp from being washed just before bed, which made the smell of her herbal shampoo extra strong. For Jane the smell could be soothing or arousing, depending on her frame of mind. Right now it was soothing.

"I can sleep if you lay down with me." Jane opened her arms and Maura eagerly fell into them, snuggling up with her front against Jane's right side, her head on Jane's shoulder, and her arm over Jane's stomach. Jane held her tight and kissed the top of her head, inhaling the shampoo smell. "Maybe that was why you had a bad feeling yesterday," she suggested, hoping a joke would help put the dream images out of her mind. "You somehow knew I was going to throw myself out of bed in the middle of the night. So, you can relax now, because the bad thing already happened."

"I don't think this was it," Maura said, her voice muffled. "I would have needed there to be clues in my environment before yesterday that you were going to do that."

"Do you still have the bad feeling?"

"Yes, but it's less intense. Maybe something did just trigger me. It's so hard to tell sometimes."

"I know. I've gone through the same thing countless times." She started to play with Maura's hair. "We're quite a pair, aren't we?"

"We _are_ both a bit battle-scarred. But we persevere in spite of it, and I'm very proud of us. In some ways, I think it's made us both better people."

"Do you think it's worth it? Our jobs, I mean?"

"Well, not every bad thing that's happened to us has been the result of our jobs. But yes, of course it's worth it. If we didn't do what we do, I wouldn't have you."

"True, but now that you have me, do you ever want to just run away and become lighthouse keepers or something?"

Maura laughed. "The lighthouses are all automated now, except for the Boston Light, and that wouldn't exactly be running away."

"We can build our own freakin' lighthouse then."

Maura lifted her head. "Those people I autopsied today, what where their jobs?"

"He did something at a bank, and she was a teacher."

"Nothing like our jobs, but they still got murdered."

"Yes. I know."

Maura was quiet for a minute. "There are days when I want to run away somewhere. But I love doing what I do, and I love the people I work with. And I love seeing you do what you do, as long as it makes you happy."

"It does." Jane sighed. "Most days I love it. Today I did not."

"Because it reminded you of Hoyt?"

Jane shuddered. "Yes. And the whole couple-killing thing just affects me more now that I'm married, I guess."

"At least they weren't killed in front of each other."

"Yeah. So it wasn't a control thing, like with Hoyt. He clearly just wanted the man out of the way so he could go after his real target."

"Mmm."

Jane realized Maura was falling asleep, so she stopped talking. She held Maura close, reassuring herself that her wife was whole and happy now. She had been hurt, the same way as in the dream, once. That haunting look in Maura's eyes was one Jane had actually seen, and would never forget, however much she might want to. It was a mixture of pain, terror, and bewilderment. It had slayed Jane when she saw it, and would no doubt continue to haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. The truth was that no matter how many horrible things you witnessed, and no matter how aware you were that such things could happen to anyone, it was still incomprehensible when it actually happened to you, or to someone you loved.

She had gone through a year of therapy to help her understand that what happened to Maura was not her fault, but what the therapist never understood was that Jane _needed_ it to be her fault. It needed to be something she could have prevented, needed to be a stupid and horrendous mistake on her part. Because if it wasn't—if there really was no way that she could have protected Maura—then that meant she couldn't protect Maura now either. It meant she had no reason to believe nothing like that would happen again, and that was the thought that kept her up at night.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Maura was just finishing her autopsy report on the double homicide when Jane came down. Maura knew she'd been interviewing people connected to the couple all day, and she looked exhausted.

"Jane." Maura smiled warmly. "How did the interviews go?"

Jane shrugged. "As far as anyone knows, neither of them were having an affair, and they had no enemies."

"You'll find something," Maura promised.

"I suppose our killer wasn't good enough to leave any of himself behind?"

"Not that I have found. He had stamina, though. He stabbed Ashley twenty-seven times. It's actually very exhausting to stab someone that many times."

"And you know this how?"

Maura chose to ignore that. "No sign of sexual assault."

"Maybe he's impotent," Jane suggested. "And he's _really pissed_ about it."

"It is possible that he was seeking sexual release from this form of penetration because he's unable to have intercourse."

"So, could be about rage, could be about sex. Could be someone they knew. Could be Boston's next serial killer." Jane leaned wearily against the wall.

"I'll be ready to go home as soon as I wrap up here. How about you?"

Jane rubbed her forehead. "I'm ready now."

"Would you like to order a pizza so we can pick it up on the way home? And then maybe I can help you relax?"

Jane smiled for the first time since getting to work that day. "You really are the best."

Maura smiled and returned to her report as Jane went off to her office to order the pizza. Maura's inexplicable apprehension was slowly waning, but she had noticed that it resurfaced each morning when they walked into work. Saying goodbye to Jane at the elevators would make her stomach tighten, as if she were sending Jane off into grave danger just by letting her go upstairs to the Homicide unit. But until she could figure out what was causing her to feel that way, she felt it was best not to mention it to Jane anymore.

After they'd gotten home and enjoyed their pizza, beer (for Jane), and wine (for Maura), Maura led her wife upstairs with the promise of a backrub.

"I really don't know what I did to deserve you," Jane said as she disrobed and stretched out on her stomach on her side of the bed.

"Is that a joke, or you really don't know?" Maura asked, emerging from the bathroom in a silk robe, massage oils in her hands.

Jane smiled to see that Maura had also undressed. "Sometimes, I really don't know."

"You love me more, and treat me better, than anyone else ever has," Maura said simply. "You make me happy. That's why you deserve me." She stood at the side of the bed, rubbing sweet-scented oil on her hands.

Jane shivered in anticipation. "I'm not as thoughtful as you are though."

Maura ran her fingers up Jane's spine. "I think you're very thoughtful." She began to massage Jane's latissimus dorsi. Jane made a small sound of approval.

"You're the one giving the amazing backrub."

Maura climbed onto the bed, straddled Jane's hips, and began working Jane's trapezius with her fingers. "You're the one who needs it right now. And I enjoy doing it." She moved her fingers up to Jane's neck. She could feel her relaxing and knew she'd be losing her words soon, which was good because her silly "I-don't-deserve-you" talk was not very conducive to proper relaxation.

Jane was quiet for several minutes. "Well, at any rate, I think you're the best thing ever," she murmured at last.

"The feeling is mutual." Maura leaned forwards and planted a trail of kisses down the side of Jane's neck, then ran her tongue back up. She found Jane's pulsing jugular, nibbled and sucked it, feeling the pulse quicken with Jane's arousal. She began moving her lips along Jane's shoulder.

"I'm guessing the innocent backrub portion of the evening is over now?" Jane asked.

"Oh, Jane." Maura rolled off of her and nudged her onto her back. "It was never an _innocent_ backrub."

Jane grinned and untied Maura's robe, sliding it off her shoulders. "This is why I love you."

Maura flashed a smile before lowering her body onto Jane's. She began to kiss her, parting Jane's lips with her tongue and sliding her own tongue inside while grinding her hips against Jane's. She slid her hands in between them, alternately kneading Jane's breasts and flicking her nipples with her fingertips. Jane moved her hips in rhythm with Maura's, sliding her hands gently up and down Maura's body.

Maura started working her way downward. She ran her tongue around Jane's right breast several times before sucking the nipple into her mouth, eliciting a moan from Jane. She rolled the nipple between her teeth, very carefully, not wanting to cause any pain. When she was finished she blew gently on the wet nipple, causing goosebumps to raise on Jane's skin. While doing the same to the left breast, she reached a hand down and began circling Jane's clit with deft fingers. Jane threw her head back, hands now stilled on Maura's back, pelvis tilting upwards to request more.

Maura moved down further and replaced her fingers on Jane's clit with her tongue. Jane moaned and tried to push herself further into Maura's mouth. Maura seized Jane's hips with both hands and licked her clit faster, then slower, then faster again, until she sensed Jane was close to the edge. Then she withdrew.

"Maura! No!" Jane cried desperately, grabbing at Maura's head as if to pull her back down.

"Don't worry, I'll get you there," Maura said sweetly, wetting two fingers and sliding them inside of Jane, hearing her gasp. She watched Jane's face as she slid her fingers in and out, pressing her clit with her thumb, until Jane closed up around her fingers, crying out and arching her back with her orgasm. Maura smiled to herself. She loved watching Jane climax whenever she could. She loved seeing Jane's beautiful features in the throes of ecstasy, loved knowing she was doing that to her. She waited while Jane rocked her hips, trying to get every last bit of pleasure. When Jane relaxed, she pulled her fingers out and lay down beside her, slowly licking her fingers, making sure Jane saw her do it.

"You are too sexy for words," Jane said, her voice even huskier than usual. She gazed at Maura for another moment before moving to take her into her arms. She rolled Maura onto her back and lay on top of her, covering her face and neck in kisses before pulling back to look into her eyes. Maura smiled at her eagerly, but suddenly Jane's faced changed. She rolled off of Maura as if horrified.

Maura sat up. "Jane? What's wrong?" She looked down at her body, trying to understand what it was about her that moved Jane from desire to revulsion so quickly.

"I'm sorry, Maura. Something just…popped into my head. Let's try a different position."

"Did I do something wrong?"

" _No_. It's not you at all. Come here, beautiful girl." She sat up and pulled Maura up with her. Maura felt uncertain, but she was already so close to coming after seeing Jane's orgasm. She let Jane pull her onto her lap, wrapping her legs around Jane's waist and her arms around Jane's neck. Jane held Maura close and kissed her before sliding her right hand around to squeeze Maura's left breast, and then sliding her left hand down between Maura's legs. Finding her sufficiently drenched, she slid her fingers inside, causing Maura to grip her tighter. Maura pushed the odd incident out of her mind for the time being and just rode Jane's fingers, wrapping her body as tightly around Jane's as she could.

"Come on, sweet girl," Jane whispered. "You're almost there." The words were enough to send Maura over the edge, throwing her head back while clinging to Jane's muscular shoulders. She stayed wrapped around Jane for a bit, waiting for her breathing to return to normal, and then she slowly disengaged herself and lay back on her pillow.

"My beautiful Maura." Jane leaned down to kiss Maura's face before lying down beside her.

"What happened? Why didn't you want to be on top of me?"

"Don't worry about it. It wasn't you; it was just me being stupid." Jane's eyes were pleading. It was clear she wanted to move on without any further discussion.

"You looked like you suddenly thought I was disgusting or something."

" _Maura_! I could _never_ think that about you!"

"What was it, then?"

Jane hesitated, taking Maura's hand and lacing their fingers together. "It was an intrusive thought," she said finally. "You understand those."

Maura nodded. She didn't have them so much anymore, but there had been a time, shortly after her abduction over a year and a half ago, when she had barely been able to function for all the intrusive thoughts charging into her head.

"It just sort of popped up, and I felt like a bad guy for a second. I know it doesn't make any sense, but it was how I felt. I didn't want to hurt you."

Maura squeezed her hand. "You could never."

"I know." Jane squeezed back and then pulled Maura into her arms. Maura rested her head on Jane's chest, listening to her heartbeat and breathing until the reassuring sound lulled her to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Jane put her car in park and looked up at the South Boston apartment building she was about to enter. She and Korsak had interviewed just about everyone they could think of, trying to figure out who might have hated Joseph and Ashley Bibler enough to murder them, to no avail. But today Nina had gotten Ashley's phone records and discovered some recent calls from someone they had not yet spoken to: Rachel Lulling, who was not on the list of known friends the family had provided.

"This neighborhood is a lot different from the others we've been to," Jane observed. Most of their interviews had taken place in suburbia or in neighborhoods that felt suburban, like the one the couple had lived—and died—in. This was an old house, probably quite lovely in its day, that had been converted into apartments. It had once been a working class neighborhood, but had now been reclaimed by young professionals who wanted to live in "old" Boston, but couldn't afford Beacon Hill.

Jane couldn't afford Beacon Hill either, but somehow she'd wound up there anyway.

Korsak shook his head. "Soon we won't be able to recognize this neighborhood anymore, with all the yuppies moving in."

Jane checked the address and rang the buzzer for Rachel's apartment. A minute later a young woman appeared at the door. She looked nothing like the lily-white suburbanites they'd interviewed so far on this case. This woman was biracial, with short dreadlocks and a nose ring. Her outfit made her look almost like a character from _Rent_. She did not look thrilled to see them or their badges.

"I don't know who killed Ashley," she said warily.

"That's okay," promised Jane. "We're just trying to piece together the last few weeks of her life, and we saw that you'd called her recently. Can we come in?"

Rachel stepped back to grant them admittance, leading them into her apartment. Jane and Korsak sat gingerly on a secondhand couch that reminded Jane of the one she'd had in her apartment, back in her bachelorette days. Rachel remained standing.

"So how did you know Ashley?" Korsak asked.

"She's my ex," Rachel said, a defiant gleam in her eye. "We dated for two years in college."

This was certainly news. "So Ashley was…bisexual?" Jane asked.

"Yeah. Do you have a problem with that, Officer?"

"It's Detective, and actually, my wife's bisexual."

Rachel's expression softened. "Her parents didn't know."

"That would explain why they didn't mention it. So you've kept in touch with Ashley through the years?"

"We were out of touch for a while. I broke up with her because she wouldn't come out to her family. Her sister knew, and some of her close friends knew, but she couldn't bring herself to tell her parents. They're very religious, and she didn't think they'd take it well. Finally I gave her an ultimatum because I was tired of hiding, and she still wouldn't tell them, so I broke it off. I hated to do it. I loved her. But I couldn't keep living a lie." She paused and licked her lips. "We stayed friends at first. I even told her we could try again if she ever decided to be brave and tell everyone. But then she started dating Joe, and she joined his church."

"I'm guessing it wasn't a gay-friendly church?"

Rachel shook her head. "She told me we couldn't be friends anymore, that she was committing herself to being a good Christian and I was only bringing her down. Told me she was a heterosexual woman who had fallen to temptation. Suggested I get help."

Jane could see that Rachel was struggling not to cry at the memory. "So how'd you end up talking to her recently?"

"She contacted me to apologize for the way she treated me before. She'd noticed a lot of bullshit within the church during her years there and realized no one is as perfect as they pretend to be. She also confessed that her attraction to women had never really gone away, and that she no longer felt it was wrong."

"Was she interested in getting back together with you?" Korsak asked.

Rachel shook her head. "She didn't want to cheat on her husband or anything. She just missed me as a friend."

"Was she happy with Joe?"

Rachel pondered that statement. "I don't think married life was all she hoped it would be, but she did care about him. She wasn't talking about leaving."

"Did he know about you?" Jane asked.

"I don't think he knew we were talking again. He wouldn't have approved. He was the one pushing for Ashley to renounce her bisexuality. But yeah, he knew we dated."

"Did anyone else know you two were talking again?"

"Not that I know of. I don't think she would have told anybody who would have disapproved. I mean, she kept me a secret for two years while we were dating. It couldn't be that hard to keep it a secret that we were just talking again. We hadn't even seen each other in person."

"Do you know of anyone who might have had a grudge against Ashley, or who could have been angry with her?"

"No. But there's a lot I don't know about her life since meeting Joe."

XXX

When they left Rachel's apartment, they still had no idea who had killed the Biblers, but Jane felt they might have gained an important piece of the puzzle by learning about Ashley's bisexuality. It might have nothing to do with the murders, but it was the only secret they'd been able to dig up on the couple.

As she and Korsak got into her car, Jane glanced at her phone and saw a voicemail notification. She hit play, smiling when she heard Maura's voice.

 _"Hi Jane, it's Maura. I just wanted to let you know that I got the test results back on Lucas Griffin, and I'm ruling his death an accidental overdose, so it isn't your case anymore. Also, I went to my gynecologist appointment this morning, and I told her I was thinking of getting pregnant in the near future. She said everything looks good, and she gave me a brochure for an excellent fertility clinic where we can have IVF done. I want you to look at it when we get home—the brochure, that is. Anyway, I hope your day is going well. I'll see you later. I love you!"_

Jane smiled as she replaced her phone on its clip and started the car.

"Was that the wife?" Korsak asked, noting the smile.

"Yeah. She says Lucas Griffin wasn't murdered. Just an overdose."

"Well, that's one less thing on our plates."

"Yeah. You know what's funny though?"

"What?"

"I've known Maura for close to six years. We've been best friends most of that time. We've been living together for two years now, and married for over six months. But she still says "it's Maura" every damn time she leaves me a voicemail, like I'm not going to recognize her voice."

Korsak chuckled. "That's our doc."

"I should be insulted," laughed Jane. "What kind of person would I be if I couldn't recognize my own wife's voice?"

"But you're not insulted, because you know her."

"Yep. Mauras will be Mauras. Nothing you can do."

Jane fell silent on the drive back to the station, contemplating the IVF conversation she would be having with Maura later. It was part of an ongoing conversation and something they were both on board with, but they hadn't worked out the details yet. Every time Jane thought about having a kid with Maura, her stomach swooped like she was going downhill on a very fast roller coaster. It was both thrilling and terrifying. Jane actually loved kids, and she knew Maura would be an incredible mother. The idea of putting little Mauras into the world was almost unbearably wonderful. But she still had a lot of concerns. What if she wasn't a good mother? Or what if she was, but she turned into _her_ mother? How would parenthood change her relationship with Maura? And, worst of all, what if they brought an amazing child into the world, and then something horrible happened to that child? She could hardly stand to see _other_ people's kids in danger. She didn't know what she would do if it was her own kid.

She was still pondering all of that when she got back to her desk and saw something that made her blood run cold.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Maura thought Jane seemed subdued on the way home, and she was afraid to ask why for fear that it had something to do with the conversation they were supposed to have. She didn't know why Jane would be reluctant to discuss having a baby, though. It was something they'd talked about off and on since before they were even engaged, and Maura had made it very clear that she didn't need children to be happy. All she really needed was Jane, and Jane had said pretty much the same thing: that Maura was plenty enough to make her happy, but that kids might be nice if Maura wanted them. Eventually, they had agreed that they would try for a baby. They had even discussed how much Maura hated being an only child and had both agreed that two children would be ideal. Maura thought they shouldn't wait too long, since they were pushing forty, and Jane admitted she was right. Maura had thought they were on the same page.

When they got home, Maura pulled the fertility clinic brochure out of her purse, gave it to Jane to read, and went into the kitchen to start dinner. She tried to brace herself for the possibility that Jane was going to change her mind about having kids. If she did, Maura would have to accept it, but she had to admit she'd be disappointed. Once they'd made their decision, she had gotten very excited about their future children, had started reading everything she could find about pregnancy and child-rearing. She realized that she already loved their non-existent children, even without knowing anything about them. She supposed it was true that parents never really loved their children for being who they were; how could you even pretend to, if you loved them before you knew who they would be? But there was something beautiful about that blind, inherent love that parents just gave to their children no matter what. She wasn't sure if she had ever been on the receiving end of that, and it made her feel good to know she was capable of giving it anyway.

"It's one of the best fertility clinics in the country," she said tentatively, as Jane silently looked through the brochure. "I've actually been there before. They have twenty of my eggs, that I had frozen not long before I turned thirty-six."

"Wow, I didn't know you actually did that."

"Well, as your eggs age, their fertility decreases. Even though the frozen eggs are only a few years younger than the ones in my body now, they still have a better chance of resulting in a live birth."

"So we'd use one of those?"

"Maybe."

"Why only maybe?"

"Because we might decide to use yours."

"Mine? But I thought you would have the baby?"

"I will. It's not safe for you to be out in the field when you're pregnant, and you'd be miserable on desk duty, so it makes sense for me to be the pregnant one. But if we do IVF, it won't matter whose eggs we use."

Jane looked startled. "So you could literally have _my_ baby?"

Maura broke into a grin. "It would be kind of awesome, wouldn't it?"

Jane finally cracked a smile. "It kind of would. But I always just thought it would be, you know, your egg. So we could have a kid who's kind of like you."

Maura gave Jane some vegetables to chop and returned to the dough she was rolling. "Your genes might be better than mine, though."

"How can you _possibly_ say that? That my genes are better than yours? Look at you! You're the most beautiful human being on the planet, and the smartest, and definitely the nicest. It would be a disservice to the planet not to pass your genes on."

" _That_ is a gross exaggeration. I think the world needs a new Rizzoli more than it needs a new Doyle."

" _You_ are not a Doyle."

"Genetically, I am. And I don't know what recessive genes I could be passing on."

"You don't have any bad recessive genes to pass on. _You're_ the recessive one. You turned out amazing in spite of your biological family, so clearly you got their recessive good genes, and that is what you're going to pass on to our child. I'm the one we should be worried about. If we use my egg, we could have a troubled kid like Tommy, or a seemingly responsible kid who turns out to be secretly a jackass, like my dad."

Maura smiled. "I'm not worried. I think your family has more good than bad to pass on, and we'll be good role models. And anyway, what I was thinking was that we could use my frozen eggs for the second child, because they'll still be good then, but your eggs are better now than they will be in a few years. So I thought we could harvest yours, try to conceive with them, and move on to mine if it doesn't work. And if it does work, we'll still have mine for the next baby."

Jane looked thoughtful. "That actually does make sense," she admitted. "So we could have one kid from one of my eggs, and one from one of yours?"

"Yes, if it all works out. I can carry both of them, unless you decide you want to carry one, or we could use a surrogate if necessary."

"Why would we need a surrogate?"

"If I had complications during the first pregnancy, it would be inadvisable to go through a second."

Jane stopped chopping. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Well, I have a slightly elevated risk of certain complications because I only have one kidney."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" She started chopping again, more forcefully. "Would these complications be dangerous for you, or for the baby?"

"Potentially both."

Jane heaved a sigh. "Fine. I'll be the pregnant one then."

"What? Jane, no! We agreed I would do it!"

"I'm not letting you do something that would endanger your health when I have a perfectly good uterus and _two_ functioning kidneys. So I'll go on desk duty for a while. It can't be that bad."

Maura knew that was a lie. Jane had done temporary desk duty a few times, and it made her so bored she was completely intolerable to be around.

"Jane, it's only a slightly elevated risk, for gestational diabetes and hypertension. Both of which are manageable conditions, and my OBGYN knows I need to be monitored for them. I wouldn't volunteer to do it if I didn't feel reasonably confident that I could keep myself, and our child, healthy throughout the pregnancy."

"So, you won't die in childbirth or anything?"

Maura gave her a reassuring smile. "It's extremely unlikely."

"And you want to be pregnant? It's not just to keep me off desk duty?"

"I want very much to feel our child growing inside of me. At least once. It's okay if you want to do it the next time."

Jane looked back at the brochure. "Fine, I guess you can do it. But let the record show that I was willing to do it. I'm not a wimp."

Maura laughed. "No one thinks you're a wimp, Jane. So you do want to go ahead with this?"

"Yeah, of course. But on one condition."

"What's that?"

Jane heaved a sigh. "I know couples who were really happy before they decided to have a baby, but then when they started trying, it was really difficult and it just took over their lives. It was like they couldn't even enjoy each other anymore; all they could do was be miserable that it was taking so long to have a baby. Then they finally have one, but the joy from their marriage is already gone. I don't want that to be us. I want us to still be happy together while we're trying, even if it takes a long time for it to work. And if it never works, I want us to be happy just being the two of us. You are the most important thing in my life. If I have to give you up to have a child, I don't want one."

"It's up to us to make a point of not letting the process take over our marriage, then. Perhaps we can talk to the clinic about reasonable time frames for conception, and just plan to stop trying and adopt if we don't succeed during that time frame. And if adoption doesn't work out either, we'll still have each other. We're happy now; why wouldn't we be happy if we just stay like this?"

"That is my thinking, but it doesn't work out that way for everyone."

Maura stepped around the counter to kiss Jane. "We're not everyone."

"No, we're not," agreed Jane.

Maura stepped back and appraised her wife. "So what happened at work today? You seem upset about something."

"You can tell?"

"I can always tell."

Jane reached into her blazer pocket. "I got a brochure today too. It was on my desk when I came back from questioning someone, sitting right under our wedding picture." She put the wrinkled brochure on the counter. Maura smoothed it out and read the cover:

 _GAY MARRIAGE HURTS FAMILIES_

"You can read the inside if you want, but it's the same shit I'm sure you've seen before," Jane told her. "All about how couples like us are ruining society."

"Do you know who put it on your desk?"

Jane shook her head. "No one was around when it happened. Had to be a cop though. Pretty much everyone knows I'm married to you."

"Did you check the security camera footage?"

"They only have cameras in the hallways. What would we see, besides a bunch of cops walking around in the place where they work?"

"Did you at least check for fingerprints?"

"Yeah. Found nothing."

"I don't like this." Maura could feel her anxiety flaring back up. "This constitutes a threat. BPD has a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation. Whoever put this on your desk should be disciplined. Maybe even fired."

"Maura, I'm not going to make that big of a deal about it. If whoever did it knows he got to me, it'll just be giving him what he wants."

"Jane, you have the right to go to work without being harassed by someone for being who you are. This person is saying that you shouldn't have married me." Maura found herself unexpectedly tearing up. How could anyone say she shouldn't have married Jane?

"It's probably just a one-time thing. Some asshole probably found this brochure somewhere, thought of me, and decided it would be funny to put it on my desk. Probably one of the jerks who boycotted our wedding."

"Have you told Cavanaugh?"

"No. Just Korsak knows, because he was there when I found it. Look, I'll mention it to Cavanaugh if it happens again, but otherwise it would just make matters worse if I throw a fit. Cops give each other a hard time. It's just what they do. If you get all upset about it, especially when you're one of the few women in the unit, they just give you an even harder time. It'll be better if I act like it never happened."

"But it _did_ upset you."

"Well, _yeah_. They're teasing me for being married to you, which happens to be the thing I'm proudest of." She tucked a strand of Maura's hair behind her ear. "And that's probably what this is really about. They're jealous because the sexiest woman in the world is mine and not theirs. So I'm just not going to let them know I'm upset, and we probably won't hear anything else out of them."

Maura nodded, but she wasn't convinced. Her anxiety about Jane had been linked to work, and now she had a solid reason for it. She couldn't help but suspect this was the start of something bigger.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Jane couldn't believe how difficult Maura was to get out the door for the annual BPD holiday party. _Maura_ was the one who had RSVPed for both of them. She was also the one who dragged Jane to a boutique to buy new dresses for the event. But now, suddenly, she didn't want to go because whoever put that brochure on Jane's desk might be there.

"We told everyone we would be there, Maura," Jane said patiently, sitting on the edge of the bed. Maura was in the bathroom, where she had been starting to get ready and was now getting un-ready after suddenly deciding they shouldn't go.

"Tell them you aren't feeling well."

"Honey, my mother is going to be there. She talked Frankie into bringing her as his guest. If we put the word out that one of us isn't feeling well, she's going to be over here with a thermometer and some silly home remedy, and maybe even a pregnancy test. You know she's afraid we're going to have a baby and not tell her." The fear wasn't entirely unjustified. They were currently reviewing sperm donor profiles, and they hadn't told anyone. _Especially_ not Angela.

"Tell her you have a headache. Or menstrual cramps."

Jane heaved a loud sigh. It was time to bring out the big guns. "Fine. I guess I'll have to take back this dress you made me get."

Maura popped back out of the bathroom, one earring in her hand. "Don't take it back! You can wear it another time!"

"When?"

"You can wear it to Christmas dinner."

"Sweetie, you're the only one in the family who gets dressed up for Christmas dinner."

"I really wanted to see you wear it, though. And I was going to put your hair up…"

"Well, tonight was the only occasion I had to wear it. It only makes sense to take it back."

"Jane…" Maura picked up the shiny red dress she'd selected for Jane, looked it over, then looked back at Jane, her face a picture of agony.

"Maura," Jane said gently, "you've been convinced I was in mortal danger for a few weeks now, and here I am, still alive. No one's even tried to hurt me. I'm pretty sure I can make it through a party full of cops."

"Fine," Maura said reluctantly. "But I'm staying by your side."

Jane studied her with concern. She'd really never seen Maura like this before. "Honey, have you considered making an appointment with Melanie to talk about how you've been feeling, see what she says?" Maura had seen a therapist for over a year after her abduction, and when she stopped going regularly, Melanie had said that Maura could still call if anything came up or if she otherwise needed to talk.

"I'll call Melanie if you call Kendra," Maura replied, gazing at her evenly. Kendra was the therapist Jane had seen after Maura's abduction.

"Why do I need to call Kendra?" Jane didn't know why she asked. She already knew. She had been thinking the same thing herself.

"Because you're still acting weird during sex sometimes, and you don't want to talk to me about it. So maybe you should talk to her."

"Okay," she said quietly. "Why don't we get through tonight, and then we'll both do what we need to do."

Maura nodded. "I'm sorry, Jane."

"Hey, you don't have anything to be sorry for. Now go put your jewelry back on, and I'll get dressed."

Not surprisingly, they were late to the party.

"What took you girls so long?" Angela hissed when they finally arrived at the table. "We were getting worried about you."

"You were the only one worried, Ma," groaned Frankie. "It's really none of our business."

Jane rolled her eyes. Ever since reading that card, he'd been making a point of not wanting to hear anything about Jane's personal life, as if fearing that she spent all of her free time having sex with Maura.

"We're fine, Ma," Jane promised. "Maura was just taking forever to get dressed." She and Maura put their coats down and went to get food from the buffet. Upon returning, Jane sat next to her brother, and Maura sat on her other side.

"That man keeps looking at you," Maura grumbled.

Jane followed her gaze across the room to see Hawthorne sitting with his daughter. He was talking and laughing with other cops. Haley was looking down at her cell phone, hair curtaining her face.

"He's not looking at me, Maura."

"He _was_."

"Probably because he recognizes me. And because I'm with the prettiest girl in the room." She leaned over to kiss Maura's cheek.

"All I know is, he'd better keep his eyes off of my woman."

Jane sat back to look at her, incredulous. " _Really_ , Maura? What are you turning into?"

"You made it!" said Korsak, coming up behind them with a beer. "Watch out for Lugosi from Parking Enforcement. He's already trashed."

"Leave him alone, Korsak," said Jane. "The guy works in Parking Enforcement. He's got to get his kicks where he can."

Korsak laughed. "That's true." He went off to find his seat, giving Maura a quick, "You look lovely tonight, Doc," on his way.

Jane looked back across the room. "I'm going to go ask Haley how her school project went over." She turned Maura. "If you're okay with me being that close to Hawthorne."

"Can I come with you?" Maura asked.

Jane sighed, standing up. "Come on, then." She took Maura's hand, helping her out of her chair. "Just promise me you're not going to turn into _that_ kind of wife."

" _What_ kind of wife?"

"The kind that's jealous all the time, even though she _knows_ her spouse only has eyes for her, and won't let her spouse go anywhere alone."

"Oh I'm not jealous. I know you would never cheat on me, and certainly not with _him_. I just don't like the way he was looking at you. It was a bit predatory."

"Okay, well, whatever you call it…" Jane put a hand on the small of Maura's back, steering her towards Haley.

"I'm protective. _You're_ the same way."

Jane considered that. She didn't know how Hawthorne had been looking at her, but she pretty much glued herself to Maura's side whenever anyone looked at her the wrong way, so she supposed she couldn't complain. "Okay, fair enough," she admitted.

Haley looked up uncertainly from her phone when she sensed people standing close to her. "Detective Rizzoli," she said in surprise.

Jane smiled warmly. "Hi, Haley! I just wanted to see how your assignment went over with your teacher. Did you get a good grade?"

"Yeah, I got an A," Haley mumbled.

"Good! This is my wife, Dr. Maura Isles." Jane put her arm around Maura's waist.

Maura tore her eyes from Haley's father, who was deep in conversation with his back to them, to smile at Haley and offer her hand. Haley took it, but only with her fingertips, and quickly disengaged.

"You have a wife?" Haley asked Jane, looking fascinated.

"Yes, and a far better one than I deserve." Jane kissed the side of Maura's head. "She's the chief medical examiner for the whole Commonwealth."

"So you do autopsies?" Haley asked her.

Maura looked thrilled that the kid was asking. "Yes, and I run a variety of tests, among other things. Basically, I'm in charge of the scientific side of an investigation. Are you interested in science? The human body?"

Haley shook her head. "It's too gross."

Maura's face fell, but just then, Hawthorne himself turned to notice them standing there.

"Detective Rizzoli!" he exclaimed jovially. "And this must be your…partner?"

"My _wife_ , Dr. Isles," said Jane quickly. Why the hell did so many people have troubled accepting that same-sex couples used the same terminology as opposite-sex couples?

"Good to meet you, Dr. Isles," he said, holding out his hand. Jane watched in amusement as Maura hesitantly reached to shake his hand.

"We need to get back to our table," Jane said, eager to avoid an awkward conversation that might involve Maura actually living up to the things people said about her behind her back. "It was good to see you both though!" She took Maura's hand and led her back to the table.

"Isn't he the one whose family died in a fire?" Maura asked.

"Yeah, all except him and Haley." They reclaimed their seats and resumed eating.

Jane had been chatting with her mother for a few minutes when she looked back at Maura and saw her reading an article on her phone. A closer look revealed a picture of a burning house.

"Maura, is that Hawthorne's house? Put that away!" Jane hissed.

"No one can see what I'm looking at except you. I was just curious to know the full story."

Jane glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention. It felt wrong to read an article about someone's personal tragedy while they were in the room, but she had to admit she was curious too. "Well, what's the full story?"

"They were living in Fort Meade, Maryland when it happened. Hawthorne's sister, Amanda, had been staying with the family to help with the kids while he was in Iraq. He was scheduled to get home on June 20, 2004, but he came three days earlier to surprise his family. The fire happened on the day he was supposed to arrive, so officials believe he was the target, that whoever set the fire didn't know he'd come home early."

"That makes sense," said Jane, her brain kicking into detective mode as she wondered who would have wanted to kill the man, and his entire family, the second he got back from Iraq.

"It says the fire started downstairs and spread quickly. There was accelerant on the carpet in the living room, on the stairs, and in the second story hallway, but Hawthorne admitted that the front door had been left unlocked, so anyone could have gotten in. His sister was sleeping in the living room. His wife Kim was in the master bedroom, and their two sons, three-year-old Cody and six-month-old Austin, were in a room down the hall. They all died in their beds. Hawthorne says he woke up because he heard the fire, went into the hallway to see what was going on, and ran to his kids' rooms even though he had to go through flames. He heard Haley calling for help—she was almost six—so he went into her room first. He received second- and third-degree burns on his torso and arms trying to get in there. He picked her up and climbed out of her window. He was able to hang onto the sill and then drop down onto the grass while holding her, so they weren't hurt from the fall. She wasn't burned, but there was no way to get back in to save the others."

"That is a _really_ sad story," said Jane.

"It is," agreed Maura. "But there's something odd about it."

"What's that?"

"His wife was found in her bed. Not by the door or the window, like she was trying to get out."

"People don't always wake up when their house is on fire. You know that."

"Yes, but _he_ did. Why didn't he wake her up?"

Jane suddenly felt cold. "Maybe he wasn't sure there was anything going on until he went out into the hallway, and by then all he could do was try and get at the kids?"

"Then he should have called out to her, shouldn't he have? Honestly, if I even thought our house _might_ be on fire, I would wake you up before I did anything else."

Jane thought it over, trying to envision a scenario in which she might leave a burning house without Maura. She couldn't. "You're right. He should have gotten her up right away so she could get out, and help get the kids out."

"I'm surprised the local police weren't suspicious of that."

"Well, to be fair, they knew more about the case than we do. He may not have done the best thing in the situation, but people don't always think clearly in a crisis."

"But he was in the military. He's trained to think clearly during a crisis."

"That doesn't mean he's perfect."

Jane looked across the room at Hawthorne cheerfully interacting with his coworkers. She noticed Haley peering at her through the curtain of her hair, although she looked away as soon as she saw Jane looking back. She wondered again how much the kid remembered of the fire. Almost six was plenty old enough to remember, but kids that age often blocked out traumatic experiences.

She was certainly not prepared to accuse Hawthorne of anything based on what little she knew, and it wasn't her case anyway. But in that moment, she decided she didn't trust him. Not at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"What about this guy?" Jane asked. "It says he's a biology major. He has blond hair and green eyes. His baby picture is really cute."

"Put his profile in the 'maybe' folder and we'll review it later," Maura told her. They were looking over sperm donor profiles while eating breakfast and sorting them into file folders, depending on how they felt about them. The file folders were identical to the ones they used at work, which was intended to throw Angela off if she happened to walk in on them.

"I want one that sort of looks like you," Jane said, "so we can kind of pretend we actually combined our genes."

"Just to be safe, I should probably do a DNA profile on whatever sperm we get to make sure it didn't come from a biological relative of mine."

"Would it be so bad if it did? Then we really _would_ be combining our genes."

"It wouldn't be so bad this time, but the idea was to buy all the sperm so we could hopefully use the same donor for our second child, and we were planning to use _my_ egg that time."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that _would_ be gross."

Their phones rang, calling them to a new crime scene, so they put the file folders back into the evidence box they'd been keeping them in, and Jane dutifully carried it upstairs.

The call took them out to another new construction. They met Korsak outside, and the three of them walked in together. In the foyer they were greeted with the sight of a man in his thirties, clad in pajamas, sprawled on his back on the staircase, throat slit.

"No," groaned Jane. "Is this for real the same guy again?"

"It doesn't look good," said Korsak. "No signs of a break-in. It looks like Joel Martin here answered the door, maybe even let the killer in."

"Just like the last one. So I suppose the wife has been stabbed to death in her bed."

Korsak nodded, motioning up the stairs. "After you."

Maura took the dead man's vitals before following them up. It wasn't her job to speculate about potential serial killings, but she couldn't help thinking that was what it looked like. She went upstairs to find a woman sprawled across her bed, multiple stab wounds in her chest. She took her vitals as well and went to find Jane and Korsak down the hall.

"There's more," Jane told her glumly.

Maura glanced through the nearest doorway, catching a glimpse of Red Sox posters and stuffed animals. "Kids?" she asked reluctantly.

Jane nodded.

Maura steeled herself and went into the room. A little boy was lying in bed, eyes closed as if he were sleeping, throat slit just like his father's.

"His name is Ethan," said Korsak, looking at his notes. "Eight years old."

Maura had the overwhelming desire to talk to the little boy, to tell him it would be okay now, that they would find out who did this to him and his family. And she might have, if she'd been alone with him. At least it would have made _her_ feel better.

"There's one more," Jane said gently, when Maura was done with Ethan's vitals. She put a hand on Maura's back as they walked across the hall, and Maura wondered if she was also thinking of the child they hoped to create. It was only going to get harder, she realized, to work this kind of case.

In the third bedroom was a little girl in a princess bed, lying still with not a mark on her. She was neatly covered up with her hands folded on her chest, a stuffed unicorn by her head. She looked perfectly peaceful aside from being dead.

"Emma," said Jane, struggling to keep her voice even. "Five years old."

Maura leaned close to the little girl. "Cyanosis of the face," she said softly. "She may have been asphyxiated."

"We're going to have to completely re-evaluate every theory we've had about this killer," said Jane. "Before we thought it was personal, that he just wanted to get the husband out of the way so he could kill the wife. But here, he took out the whole family. His rage is still directed at the woman, but he killed the kids too. And in different ways. The way he covered the girl up and put her toy next to her shows remorse. And he didn't want to cut her."

"If he wanted to show mercy, slitting her throat would actually have killed her faster," Maura pointed out.

"Yes, but it would have been a lot uglier. Maybe he didn't want to shed her blood."

Maura reached a gloved hand out and gently touched the little girl's hairline. "She's so tiny."

"I know." Jane sighed. "We'll find the guy who did this though."

Maura smiled up at her. "I know you will."

Maura gave the okay to have the bodies bagged and transported, and got back in the car with Jane to head to the station. They were both quiet for a while after leaving the crime scene. Maura was brooding over the murdered family, the BPD holiday party, her lingering feeling of dread. Suddenly she made a connection.

"It was Hawthorne," she announced, looking urgently at Jane.

"What was?"

"Remember when I woke up with that ominous feeling? I've tried and tried to think of what was unusual about the day before that, and all I can come up with is Hawthorne. It was the first time I saw him."

"Okay, but what was it about him that gave you a bad feeling that day?"

Maura struggled to remember the details of that afternoon. It had been almost a month. "Something about him made me uneasy when I saw him talking to you, but I brushed it off when you said you knew him. It was weird that he walked right by me without saying anything though. People I don't know say hi to me on the elevator and in the hallways all the time, because they know you and they recognize me from the pictures on your desk. But he said nothing even though he was just talking to you."

Jane looked thoughtful. "Actually, I think I had just shown him our wedding picture. He asked who my flowers were from."

Maura shuddered. "It's not any of his business who you get flowers from."

"It's a pretty normal question to ask though. I didn't think that was weird, but I thought it was weird that he didn't seem to notice you right after looking at your picture. Maybe he was just lost in his own thoughts or something."

"I wish I could pinpoint exactly what it was in his demeanor that bothered me. At the time I tried to tell myself it was nothing, because I just get nervous around strange men sometimes now, and usually there's not a real threat. But I felt the same way at the party, when I saw him looking at you. He didn't just look like someone who was recognizing a colleague. He looked _too_ interested."

"Well, I hardly ever see him, so he'll just have to be interested from a distance."

"I think you should stay away from him at all costs," Maura said sharply.

"I'll do my best, Maura, but like I said, I hardly see him as it is."

"When his house burned down, he only saved his little girl," Maura said softly. "His wife and sons died, his sister died, but he saved her. She was about the same age as Emma."

"You're not accusing Hawthorne of murdering this family, are you?"

"I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm just drawing parallels."

"Well, whoever killed this family didn't even save the girl. He killed everyone."

"Yes, but he showed remorse for killing Emma. Not for the others though, not even Ethan. And both families appear to have let the killer in."

"Yes. That's why we think it was someone they knew."

"It might have been. But most people would also let in a police officer with a badge, even if they didn't know him."

Jane shook her head as if trying to dislodge an unpleasant thought. "You realize that I can't question a fellow cop, can't even hint that I might suspect him of anything, unless I have something solid?"

"I know. I'm not asking you to."

Jane pulled the car into a spot in front of the station and put it in park. "I can't even look him up in the system, because everything we look at is monitored."

"Jane." Maura put a calming hand on her wife's arm. "I was just making a comparison. I'm not asking you to actively investigate one of your colleagues."

"I know." Jane sighed and leaned back. "But I kind of want to, now."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Kendra clicked open a pen and looked at Jane, who was slumped in a chair with her arms folded. "So what brings you back here?"

Jane ran her fingers through her hair, avoiding Kendra's eyes. "I guess mostly it's a problem I'm having, you know, in bed. With my wife."

"Well, it's safe to speak freely about anything here."

Jane cleared her throat. "We have a pretty healthy sex life, for the most part, but I just—I can't stand to, you know, _dominate_ her, at all anymore. And she's noticed, and it bothers her."

"So, this is something you used to do?"

"Not, like, a bondage thing, but I just mean, I could take charge sometimes, you know? I could just tell her to lie back and let me…let me make her feel good. And she wants me to do it sometimes now, but it's hard."

Kendra glanced over her notes. "So when you say you used to, do you mean before your wife's abduction?"

"Well, yes, it was never a problem back then. And after it wasn't always a problem. At first I insisted that she always be in control, but after more time passed, things went back to normal. But then recently, stuff came back up."

"So what's making it difficult for you now?"

"I don't know for sure what made it come up, but there was one night when she was…on her back, and I was on top of her, and I suddenly thought, _this is what he did to her_. And I felt like a monster for wanting what he wanted."

"That's a very interesting statement. Do you really believe you want what he wanted? What do you think he wanted?"

Jane frowned. "Well, he wanted _her_ , and so do I."

"I have no doubt that he wanted her, but that doesn't mean he wanted her in the same way you do. While most people assume rapists are after sexual gratification, it's considered to be more a crime of violence. A rapist's primary goal is to take control of another human being, to cause that person pain, suffering, humiliation. It makes them feel powerful. It actually has very little to do with sexual desire."

Jane shuddered. _He wanted to make her suffer_. And she had, although he hadn't lived to see most of it. She had suffered quite a bit, and Jane along with her. Jane still couldn't wrap her head around the idea that anyone, no matter how depraved, could look at sweet, loving Maura and _want_ to see her suffer.

"Jane," said Kendra. "Did you hear my question?"

"No, sorry. Could you repeat it?"

"What is it _you_ want when you're having sex with your wife?"

Jane leaned her forehead on her hand. "Well, I guess I just want to be close to her. I want to make her feel good, and kind of…worship her, in a sense. And I want to feel good too, of course, but it's…really an honor just to be allowed to touch her. She's amazing."

"So would you say you're primarily motivated by love for her?"

"Of course."

"Which sounds like the complete opposite of what must have motivated the man who assaulted her."

Jane nodded. "Yeah. Well, yeah."

"And what about your wife? Has she given any indication that your actions remind her of being assaulted?"

"Not at all. I mean, she wants me to be there, so it's not similar to her."

"So you have sex with her because she wants you to, and because you love her."

"And because she's hot."

Kendra smiled. "An element of physical attraction is very important in a healthy marriage. And she deserves for you to find her attractive, doesn't she?"

"Definitely."

"And she's happy?"

"Yeah, other than wondering what my problem is lately."

Kendra looked thoughtful. "So is there something else bothering you?"

"It's…convoluted."

"I can handle convoluted."

"Well, it's kind of always beneath the surface. What happened to Maura, I mean. It's still hard to accept that it happened."

"It is a very difficult thing to accept."

Jane stared down at her hands, twisting her wedding ring. "It hurts. It hurts more than anything I've ever experienced."

Kendra nodded sympathetically.

"I'm serious." Jane held up her hands to show her scars. "A man once drove scalpels through both my hands. Pinned me to the floor. I couldn't believe how much it hurt." She paused, biting her lip. "But it still didn't hurt as much as what happened to Maura."

"Emotional pain can be more intense than physical pain, and often seeing the ones we love hurt is more painful than getting hurt ourselves."

"Yeah, and what happened to her is worse than what happened to me." She swallowed. "It was just about the worst thing that could have happened without her dying."

"Why do you say that?"

Jane looked up, incredulous. "Because she was _violated. Repeatedly_. It took her a while to feel like her body was her own again after that. She still struggles with it sometimes. He just hurt her so badly, physically and emotionally. You should have seen the look in her eyes, right after. I think it's gonna bug me for the rest of my life."

She shuddered, trying to figure out how to articulate her feelings about the most heartbreaking experience she'd ever had. The memories came flooding back: the doctor's sharp intake of breath when she did the gynecological exam on Maura and saw how badly she was torn, while Jane stood clutching Maura's limp hand, tears streaming down her face, praying Maura wouldn't wake up until the exam was over. Maura waking up in her hospital room and telling Jane she felt ruined—an impossibility, of course, because Maura could _never_ be ruined, but it was still painful to know she felt that way. Then there was the nurse bringing Maura an ice pack, which Maura wordlessly situated between her legs, avoiding Jane's gaze as she did so. Jane hadn't said anything either, because what was there to say? _Gee, Maura, putting ice on your pussy sounds very uncomfortable. You must really be in agony if you find that soothing_. The pain Jane had felt at the time seemed almost physical. It had started in her chest and spread all the way to the tips of her fingers.

"What happened to Maura is hard to comprehend because that sort of thing isn't meant to happen to anyone," Kendra said gently, noticing the tears slipping down Jane's face.

"It shouldn't happen to anyone," Jane agreed quietly, brushing the tears away. "But Maura is the sweetest, kindest, most loving person in the world." She shifted her position. "That's part of what makes it so hard. It's not just that I love her. It's that she's never hurt anyone. She just wants to help people. She's so generous and trusting, so selfless. She didn't deserve to have to suffer at all, but she suffered _so much_." Jane was shaking now, the same way she had when she found out Maura had been taken. "I know it sounds cheesy, but she's like some kind of earthbound angel. Sometimes I really think she is." She resumed twisting her ring. "Normally I've been able to protect her. People have tried to hurt her other times, but I always stopped them before they got very far."

"Sounds like we're coming back to you blaming yourself for things you can't control. That was a common theme during our regular sessions."

"Yes, but…that's because I _need_ to be in control." She licked her lips. "If what happened to her wasn't my fault, if I couldn't have stopped it, then there's no reason to think I can keep other people from hurting her in the future. And I can't live with that."

Kendra nodded. "I understand that. But unfortunately, part of life is accepting that we can't control everything."

"I don't need to control everything. I just need to control this." Jane wiped another tear away. "We're working a case right now where someone murdered two couples, and the children of the second couple. It reminds me a little of Charles Hoyt's murders. Hoyt killed couples, and he raped the female victims. He threatened to rape Maura once."

"Ah. So do you think this is what brought everything back up?"

"Could be. But like I said, it's convoluted. None of the victims in this case have been sexually assaulted."

"But the case reminds you of others that did involve sexual assault."

"Yes." Jane sighed. "Maura just handles all of this better than I do."

"It's actually very difficult to determine whether one person handles a situation better than another, since each person handles things differently, and recovery often isn't linear. But even if we could say with certainty that Maura is handling the situation 'better' than you, I might remind you that she was able to start processing her feelings right away after her abduction, while you had to put your own needs on hold for a few months in order to take care of her. I recall you saying that she found a therapist immediately after being released from the hospital, while you didn't come to me until about three months later. And from what you told me, you had spent most of your time taking care of her both physically and emotionally, making sure she was okay. You hadn't taken the time to even wonder if _you_ were okay. So if she seems to have moved on faster than you, it's probably because she got a head start."

"Yeah, I guess." Jane looked at the clock. "I gotta go. My lunch break is almost over, and Maura will freak if I don't eat something."

Kendra smiled warmly. "You'd better get going then. But next time you're having sex with your wife, try to focus on why you want it. It'll help you remember you're not a bad guy."

"I'll try."

"And if you need to take a different approach for a while, that's perfectly okay. There's no need to do anything you're not comfortable with. Maura should understand."

"Yeah. She will."

Jane hurried out of the office, but traffic was slow, and she soon realized there was no way she'd have time to pick something up on the way to work. She'd resigned herself to skipping lunch after all when she got back to her desk and found an insulated lunch tote sitting on top, bearing a note in Maura's hand:

 _Jane- I thought you might not get a chance to eat, so I packed you a lunch. Love, Maura_

Jane broke into a grin and opened the tote to see what was inside. The first Tupperware container held kale salad—gross, but at least she'd included real salad dressing. She picked up the next container expecting to find a quinoa wrap, but instead she found (could it be?) a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich, with the crusts cut off! Granted, it was on wheat bread instead of white, but still. Jane dug excitedly to see what other wonders Maura had wrought. The third container held grapes—healthy, but still tasty—and the final one held the greatest wonder of all: Thin Mints.

 _So this is what it feels like to be well and truly loved_ , Jane thought.

She bit into the sandwich and pulled out her phone to send a grateful text to Maura.

 _Eating the lunch you left me. You know I love you more than anything in the universe, right?_

A minute later her phone pinged. _I love you more than anything in the universe too. :) I hope your session with Kendra went well._

 _It did. I'll tell you about it tonight_. Jane put her phone back on her belt and woke up her computer. She returned to some research she'd been working on before her break, eating as she worked, feeling like a knot in her chest was coming undone. Whatever happened with this small hiccup in their sex life, she realized, everything was going to be okay. Maura loved her the same regardless, and she loved Maura enough to find a way over any obstacle for her.

She was just starting to really relax when she noticed the wedding picture she kept on her desk was gone.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Maura sipped her wine, waiting for Jane to come downstairs. It was a Friday night, Angela was out, and they were going to do a bit of a role play game. Jane's therapist had told her she might need to take a different approach to sex for a while, and Maura thought pretending to be other people for a night might be helpful. Initially Maura had a very elaborate plan going where they would meet at a bar and then go to a hotel, but Jane was unenthusiastic about that, so they scaled back to just a simple game at home. They had tossed around a few ideas before Jane admitted she'd had a lot of fantasies about Maura wearing the waitress uniform she had worn while undercover at a lesbian nightclub several years earlier. Maura did remember Jane staring at her cleavage a lot that night, and was a little amused when Jane asked her to wear the outfit.

"I don't have it," she had explained. "That was the uniform all the waitresses wore there. They just let me borrow one."

"But the other waitresses weren't wearing what you were wearing!" Jane had insisted.

"Jane, they were _all_ wearing the exact same thing I had on."

Jane didn't believe her. Maura was delighted though, because it meant Jane had been too busy looking at _her_ to notice anyone else. If only she'd realized that at the time…

So, in an effort to please Jane and distract her from the intrusive thoughts she'd been having during sex, Maura put together an outfit that was very similar to that waitress uniform. She wore a very tight top that showed plenty of cleavage, a short skirt, thigh-high stockings, and heels. And, unlike that night at the club, she was _not_ wearing panties. She was looking forward to the moment when Jane found that out.

Jane came down wearing a tank top, jeans, and a lot more makeup than usual. Maura couldn't suppress a grin when she saw her. She looked hot. She looked like someone who was on the prowl, ready to flirt with her waitress and then take her home for the night. And _Maura_ got to be that waitress. She felt a thrill of anticipation as she approached her "customer."

"Good evening, Miss. What can I get for you?"

"I'll have a beer," Jane said awkwardly. For someone who had plenty of experience with undercover operations, she had a lot of trouble getting into character for these role playing games. Maura knew she'd be able to draw her in though. She grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped it open, and set it down in front of Jane.

"I haven't seen you here before," Maura remarked. "What brings you here tonight?"

"Well, I just recently came out, so I thought, maybe it's time to dip my toes in the water. You know, meet some women."

Maura smiled, noticing that Jane was looking at her cleavage instead of her face. "What brought you out of the closet at this point in your life?"

"Well, you know, men suck." Jane made a face. "And there's this really cute medical examiner at work. I want to ask her out, but I'm afraid I'll disappoint her, you know, in the sack. I was hoping to get some experience first."

Maura thought that was really sweet. Even Jane's fantasies were about her! Although this meant there were actually two Mauras in their fantasy parallel universe: one who was a medical examiner, and one who worked in a lesbian bar. And if there were two Mauras, did that also mean there were two Janes? If so, what did the other Jane do? She decided it was best not to overthink it.

"I'm sure she would want you to learn on her though, even if it means you're not very confident at first," Maura pointed out.

Jane gave her a weird look. "Okay then. In that case, I guess I'll just leave this lesbian bar and not fuck the really hot waitress who's flirting with me."

"Oh, sorry! Pretend I didn't say that! Just…say your last line again."

"I was hoping to get some experience first," Jane said slowly, as if Maura might not have heard her right the first time.

"Well, you've come to the right place." She gently pushed a strand of Jane's hair behind her ear, but she felt like she'd gotten out of the groove after breaking character a second ago. She had to find a way to get back in. "Tell me about this medical examiner."

"Well, she's smart, she's funny, and she's really sweet. I could see myself marrying her someday, although if I do, some jealous creep will probably just steal our wedding picture off my desk at work."

"If that happens, I'm sure she'll give you a new one with an even better frame and _nail it to your desk_ if she has to."

Jane laughed. "I could see her doing that."

Maura stepped closer to Jane, sliding an arm around her back. "When you ask her out, I'm sure she'll say yes."

"How do you know?"

"Because." Maura kissed Jane's neck. "You are." She kissed again, lower. "So." She kissed Jane's shoulder at the base of her neck. " _Sexy_." She moved the strap of Jane's tank top aside and kissed her shoulder.

Jane put down her beer and grabbed Maura's waist with both hands, eyes darkening with desire. "Well you have the finest fucking pair of tits I've ever laid eyes on."

Maura smiled. "Would you like to touch them?" she murmured, her voice barely audible.

"Oh, fuck, yes." Jane pressed her lips to Maura's cleavage, kissing every bit of skin she could access, then licking her way up each breast and then dipping her tongue in between both breasts and running it up the center. Maura's breath started coming faster, her hands tangled in Jane's hair as she realized her own fantasy had started playing out in her head: that this _was_ the night she had gone undercover with Jane, that Jane had actually decided to get this bold on that night. She tilted Jane's head back and kissed her deeply, her tongue feeling for Jane's. She felt Jane's hands slide up to cup her breasts, thumbs teasing her nipples through the fabric of her top. Maura's heart was pounding when she came up for air.

"Maybe we should go someplace…more private," Jane suggested breathlessly.

Maura had given some thought to that in advance. She wanted a new location, which meant the bed was certainly out of the question, and the couch too. Even the kitchen counter had gotten some use in the past. She wanted to do something like on TV, when couples went out to the alley behind whatever bar they'd just met in and had sex against the wall. If it weren't December, she would have gladly led Jane out to the backyard, but that scenario would have to wait until warmer weather. For now, the best she could do was the foyer. It wasn't very exciting, but at least it was a room they hadn't had sex in yet.

"Come on, I'll take you to the back room," she said in her sexiest voice, grabbing Jane's hand and leading her to the foyer. She went around behind the staircase, out of the view of the front door, and positioned herself with her back against the wall, pulling Jane towards her. This was a position they weren't in often, and it gave Jane a chance to be dominant, if she so chose.

Jane put her hands on Maura's waist and resumed kissing her. Maura pressed her entire body up against Jane's and felt Jane's hands move down to the hem of her skirt, then slowly up the back.

"Mmm." Jane pulled her face back a couple inches. "No underwear."

Maura grinned. "Well, you're not the first girl I've brought back here. I get women like you here all the time."

"Mm. I bet you do." Jane kissed her jaw, her neck, still moving her hands under her skirt. "Is your boss okay with you doing this sort of thing at work?"

"Of course! It's good for business."

Jane laughed. "I bet you _are_ good for business." She ran her tongue along Maura's shoulder, hands stilled on her hips. "Tell me how you want me to touch you."

"Like this." She grabbed Jane's left wrist and brought her hand around to the front. "Am I wet?" She already knew the answer to that, as she was dripping onto her thighs, but she wanted to hear Jane say it.

"You're soaked," Jane told her. " _Damn_."

"I got wet just looking at you," she whispered into Jane's ear.

"So what do I do? Remember, I've never done this before." Jane gave her a wicked grin.

Maura thought she was going to go nuts if Jane didn't do something soon. "Caress my—" She paused, remembering what Jane always said about her bedroom talk being too textbook, and tried to think about how a waitress who regularly seduces women would refer to her anatomy. "—my pussy."

Jane's eyes widened upon hearing the colloquialism from Maura's mouth. She began to move her fingers gently back and forth along Maura's swollen folds. Maura's hips moved of their own accord, trying to press herself more fully into Jane's hand.

"Stroke my clitoris," Maura breathed. She cried out involuntarily when Jane obliged. She clung to Jane, fighting the urge to just climb her like a tree. " _Faster_." Jane went faster, attentively watching Maura's face. Maura leaned her head back against the wall, not sure she could stand it much longer. "Slow down," she gasped when she felt herself getting too close to climax already. "Just do circles around my—my clit… _yes_ …like that." She closed her eyes.

"So, you like this?" Jane asked quietly, her tone implying she knew perfectly well that she did.

"Yes! I like it, but…I need you...inside of me."

Jane moved her fingers to Maura's entrance. "How many fingers am I supposed to use?"

Maura struggled not to lose her patience. This was Jane's fantasy. She was doing this for Jane.

"When in doubt, start with one," she said evenly. "But on me, use two. _Now_."

Jane chuckled at Maura's impatience and inserted two fingers. "Now what do I do?"

Maura sighed. Jane had _not_ been this clueless during their real first time. "You just move them, up and down, in and out…mm…harder…"

"Like that?" Jane asked, knowing perfectly well that she was finally doing the right thing.

"Yes, like that…mmm…and if you curl them towards the front, you can…stimulate…oh, yes…yes, like that… _Jaaane_!" Jane watched with a wicked grin as Maura exploded into orgasm with little warning. Maura leaned her full weight against Jane, who held her up expertly, stroking her hair with her free hand. Slowly she withdrew her fingers, sucked Maura's juices off, and waited for Maura's breathing to even back out.

"I kind of liked having you tell me what to do," she said.

"I noticed," said Maura. "I think I like it better when you don't pretend not to know what you're doing, but…"

"But what?"

"I kind of liked that you were talking more than usual. You have such a sexy voice."

Jane smiled. "How about I take you upstairs, get you out of these clothes, and fuck you again, only this time, we'll just be ourselves? Cause you know, it's fun to play games now and then, but my wildest fantasy ever is being married to you."

Maura met her eyes, smiling brightly. "Mine is being married to you."

XXX

Two hours later, the bed was a wreck, but Maura could not have been happier. For the first time in weeks, Jane had brought the same intensity into the bedroom that she had when chasing down suspects, and she hadn't flinched or held back at all. Now they were both spent, tangled up together on the bed in silence. Jane had a strand of Maura's hair that she kept winding around her fingers, then letting go, then winding up again. She looked lost in thought.

"You were amazing tonight," Maura told her, breaking the silence.

Jane's eyes moved to hers, looking slightly surprised to be pulled from her reverie. "Yeah? Well, you're always amazing." She shifted a little, grabbing a blanket and pulling it over them.

Maura snuggled up closer to Jane. "Why didn't you want to go anywhere for our game tonight? We had fun here, but it's more exciting to do things like that when it takes us out of our familiar environment. We could have had sex in a real back room somewhere."

"I just didn't want other people around. Not right now."

"That's perfectly okay, but can I ask why not?"

Jane shrugged. "I guess because someone's already scrutinizing us. I mean, first he puts a pamphlet under our wedding picture, then he steals the damn picture. What the hell is that about? Did he want it for himself, or did he just not want me to have it?" She wrapped her arms more tightly around Maura. "At least here we don't have to worry about anyone judging us."

"I wonder what he does want," Maura said thoughtfully. "I haven't gotten any threats of any kind. There's a wedding picture on my desk too, and it hasn't been disturbed."

"Maybe he never has a reason to go down to the basement. Maybe my desk is handier for him."

"Or maybe it's not really about homophobia. Maybe he's just upset that you're with me instead of him."

"Yeah, so all he has to do is get me to realize that being gay married is a mistake, and once I dump you, I'll definitely marry him. Even though it would be like trading in a Maserati for a damn Pinto."

Maura laughed. "I can't believe you're comparing me to a car."

"It was the first thing that popped into my head." She picked up another strand of Maura's hair and started twirling it again. "I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't know what he's going to do next, but I don't think he's done." She heaved a sigh. "Are you really sure I'm worth it? I mean, you could have married a man instead, and not had to worry about societal disapproval."

"I knew what I was getting into when I married you. And you always say we shouldn't give in to fear." She lifted her head up. "You know how happy you make me, right?"

Jane put her hand on Maura's face and tenderly kissed her. "Yeah. I know. I just worry sometimes that I'm making your life harder than it had to be. It took me forever to admit it, but we all know this, being with another woman, is what I was always meant to do. You could have gone either way though."

Maura put her head back down and laced her fingers through Jane's. "Not really. I think this is what I was always meant to do. Being with you, I mean. I think trying to live without you would be harder than anything I could possibly face with you."

Jane didn't say anything else. She just gratefully pressed her lips to Maura's head and settled down to sleep. Maura, on the other hand, lay awake thinking for a while. It was true what she said: she would gladly face anything with Jane, so long as they could be together. But that didn't really stop her from feeling apprehensive about whatever it was they were about to face.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

By early January, Jane was feeling much better about her sex life. Talking to Kendra really _had_ helped. And, so far, no one had stolen the new wedding picture on her desk, even though Maura hadn't followed through on her threat to nail it down (she was afraid of being arrested for damaging BPD property). As for Hawthorne, she hadn't seen him at all since the holiday party, and hoped to keep it that way. Meanwhile, she and Maura had settled on a sperm donor and had purchased the entire lot that he had donated, so the fertility clinic was now keeping frozen sperm for them alongside Maura's frozen eggs. Soon they'd be adding some of Jane's eggs to the collection, as she was scheduled to start taking follicle-stimulating drugs later that month.

They still had no good leads on who had killed the Biblers and the Martins. Since the only real secret they'd discovered about the Biblers was Ashley's bisexuality, Jane looked into that angle with the Martins too. But while Carol Martin did sponsor the Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school she worked at, she was by all accounts heterosexual, and her support for LGBT students was no secret. There was also no discernible connection between the Martins and the Biblers. She had covertly read up on Hawthorne's history as well. She now knew every city he'd lived in between Maryland and Boston in addition to knowing the story of his house fire inside and out, but there was nothing to connect him to either the Biblers or the Martins. There was also nothing to imply that he had a problem with lesbians.

Cavanaugh was determined to solve the case before another family could get killed, however, which meant that he denied Jane's leave request when she wanted to go with Maura to a New England Medical Officers conference in Providence. Because Maura was now president of NEMO (an acronym Jane still couldn't get over), she was expected to be present for the entire three-day conference and had a very important speech to give, which she had been rehearsing for weeks. Jane knew she would have been bored stiff at the conference and would essentially have been going as Maura's trophy wife, but damn it, she was proud of Maura. She wanted to be there to support her, wanted to give Maura someone to focus on so she wouldn't be nervous while she gave her speech. She also kind of wanted the other medical officers to see that Maura was very taken. But Cavanaugh wanted her at the office working the case instead, which meant she and Maura were both sentenced to two nights of sleeping in cold beds.

"I have a present for you," Maura announced over breakfast the morning she was scheduled to leave for Rhode Island.

"But Christmas is over."

"It's not for Christmas. It's to help you not miss me so much while I'm gone." Maura looked like she was going to burst with excitement as she handed Jane a box.

Jane opened the box to reveal what looked like an oddly-shaped sex toy. "What is this, a vibrator?"

"Yes," said Maura, looking ready to start jumping up and down. "But it's not an ordinary vibrator. It connects to Wi-Fi!"

"So, an internet vibrator?" Jane asked uncertainly, turning it over in her hands.

"There's an app. I put it on both of our phones. See, the vibrator is designed to go inside your panties and sort of cradle your vulva, and then I control the vibrations from my phone."

"Through Wi-Fi?"

"Yes!" She looked up at Jane, grinning hugely. "I can choose how it vibrates and the intensity of the vibrations from my hotel room, and it'll just do it, right here. Which means I can make love to you even while I'm gone!"

"Wow," said Jane. "You really _do_ love me."

Maura kissed her. "I've heard it said that you should keep pursuing the one you love even after you know she's yours. So this is me, pursuing you."

"Well, it's working. Not that you had much to worry about." Jane slid her arms around Maura's waist. "But what about you? Did you get one for yourself?"

"Not yet. I thought we'd try this one out, and if we like it, I can get one for me too. But hopefully we won't have to be apart too often anyway!"

"I hope not." Jane pulled Maura closer. "I don't want to be away from you for three days."

"Me neither." Maura rested her head on Jane's shoulder. "But it'll go quickly. The nights will be the hardest part."

"Yeah. If you can't sleep…"

"I'll text you."

XXX

Three days and two nights.

It was the same length of time they had been apart when Maura was abducted.

Of course, this was nothing like that. This time Jane knew where Maura was, knew she was all right, knew when she'd come back. This time, she had no aversion to being in her own home. She put in a normal day at work, had dinner at the Dirty Robber with Ma, Frankie, and Korsak, then went home to Skype with Maura and try out the remote vibrator before spending a restless night on her own. She woke up the next morning holding Maura's pillow, which was a very poor substitute for Maura herself, and got up to do it all again.

Maura was pretty chipper on Skype that night. She said someone had asked her to sign a copy of the _New England Journal of Medicine_ that she'd written an article for.

"Wow, you _are_ a real celebrity now," Jane told her. She was sitting in bed eating ice cream, her laptop propped up in front of her. "Just don't go getting a big head about. Remember, I loved you even before you were the president of NEMO."

"A doctor from Vermont offered to buy me a drink because he hadn't noticed my wedding rings, so I had to tell him I was married, and then I told him all about you. And I feel bad for it, but I actually kind of enjoyed turning him down, because he was so handsome."

"Hang on. You enjoyed turning him down _because_ he was handsome?"

"Well, yes. Because I have that luxury now. When I was single, I felt obligated to give all attractive people a chance, because I knew I might regret it if I didn't. But now, no matter what they have to offer, I just turn them all down because I know I have someone better at home."

"Aww, Maura."

"I wish you could be here, Jane. Then I could show you off to everyone."

"See, I knew I'd just be your trophy wife if I went."

"Would that be so bad?"

"No, I guess not. You're going to be mine at my next high school reunion."

"I look forward to it." Maura smiled sweetly. "Do you want to get out the vibrator again, or should I just let you sleep? You look tired."

Jane yawned. "I hate to say it, but maybe I should just try to sleep. I didn't last night."

"I was afraid you wouldn't. If you change your mind, just invite me to chat on the app, and I will gladly pleasure you again."

Jane smiled. "I'll do that. And just think: tomorrow night you'll be here in this bed, where you belong."

"I can't wait." Maura smiled sadly. "I love you, Jane."

"I love you too, beautiful. More than anything."

After she closed the computer, Jane took her spoon and the empty ice cream container downstairs. She wasn't going to start living like a slob just because Maura was gone for a few days. Then she went back upstairs, changed into a tank top and sweatpants, and climbed into the empty bed to try and sleep.

She was almost out when she heard a car door outside. It wasn't anything unusual; it just startled her a little. She rolled over, screwed her eyes shut, and then the doorbell rang. She sat up, heart pounding. The house was completely dark. No one in their right mind would be ringing the bell at this hour. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, she heard the sound of a car speeding away. She grabbed her gun from the nightstand and ran downstairs, cracking the front door open while standing behind it.

As she expected, no one was there. There was, however, a leather-bound book on the front stoop. Jane picked it up. _A Bible?_ She thought. _Someone drove over here at night just to give me a Bible?_

Several thoughts were swirling in her head as she took the Bible inside, locking the door carefully behind her. The first was that the harassment at work was clearly escalating if they were now bringing things to her house instead of just her desk. The second was that it was very stupid to assume that, just because she was married to a woman, she must not own a Bible. Aside from the little white Bible Jane still had from her first Communion, Maura had three different translations of the Bible on a bookshelf in the study (in the Religion section, because Maura actually used the Dewey Decimal System in her home library), and Ma had the old family Bible out in the guest house. So the joke was on this creep.

Jane put the Bible on the kitchen counter and turned the light on, noticing quickly that there were things stuck between the pages. Breathing quickly, she got a pair of latex gloves from Maura's medical bag before investigating further, just in case the perp had been careless enough to leave prints this time. She carefully opened to the first page that was marked and gasped to see her own face.

It was the wedding picture from her desk at work, or half of it anyway. It had been torn down the middle, separating Jane from Maura, although they'd been too close together to separate fully. Maura's hand was still resting on Jane's lower back, and Jane's hands weren't there at all, since they had been on Maura's waist when the picture was taken. You could see bits and pieces of Maura's wedding dress along the ragged edge where the picture had been torn. Jane was smiling widely at the camera, happy to be standing in her favorite place with the love of her life in her arms. She carefully lifted out the picture fragment and noticed that a passage of Genesis had been highlighted on the page the picture marked:

 _The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones  
and flesh of my flesh;  
she shall be called Woman,  
because she was taken out of Man."  
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh._

Jane turned to the other page that was marked, this time in Ephesians. As she expected, Maura's half of the wedding picture was marking this page, although she was not prepared for the fact that Maura's head had been torn off. She didn't like that at all. Reflexively she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Maura. No answer. She hung up before it could go to voicemail and dialed again, reading the highlighted passage as she did so:

 _Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands._

"Jane?" came Maura's sleepy voice on the other end of the line.

"Maura! Honey, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I was asleep. What's wrong?"

"Somebody just drove by the house and left a Bible by the front door, and it has our wedding picture in it. The one that was stolen. Only they ripped us apart, and they tore your head off, and they used the pieces to mark pages that say things about women getting married and submitting to their husbands."

"Did you see the car?"

"No, I only heard it. But Maura, they rang the bell. They wanted to make sure I saw this right away. And they _tore your head off_. Not mine. Just yours. I'm considering this to be a threat against you." Jane was frantically pacing the room, peering out windows to make sure no one was hiding in the bushes.

"It's a threat against both of us." Maura's voice was strained like she was stretching as she spoke, and Jane thought she heard the _click_ of a lamp turning on.

"Your room is locked, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Are there any extra locks on the door? Like a chain or a deadbolt?"

"There's a chain."

"Can you lock it, please?"

"Yes, but Jane, I'm in Rhode Island."

"I know. Maybe I should come get you. I don't like you being so far away when some psycho is making threats against you!"

"No, Jane, listen. _I'm_ in Rhode Island. Whoever dropped off that Bible is in Boston. _I_ should be safe. _You're_ the one we need to worry about."

"I have the doors locked. Maura, the bastard _ripped your head off!_ "

"Jane, you need to calm down. Take a deep breath. My head is still firmly attached to my body. I'm far away from whoever made this threat. Now let's talk about how to keep _you_ safe. Have you called Korsak?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Jane stopped pacing and started riffling through the Bible.

"Okay, well when we're off the phone, call him and let him know what's going on. Maybe he or Frankie can come stay with you."

"Hang on, I think I found your head."

"My head?"

"Yeah, it's in Corinthians. There's another passage highlighted. It says, 'Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts.' So the message I'm getting is that he wants me to realize it's horrible to be gay, ditch you, and find a nice husband to boss me around."

"Well, that's obviously not going to happen," muttered Maura.

"As soon as you hang up the phone, I want you to call the front desk and tell them you aren't accepting any visitors. Anyone wants to know what room you're in, they should turn them away, no matter who it is. In fact, they shouldn't even confirm that you're staying there."

"I'm not sure they would anyway, but I can check with them. Jane, I'm more worried about you. You need to call Korsak tonight, and in the morning you need to talk to Cavanaugh. This has to be someone from work because they were able to get that picture off your desk, and it's probably the same person who left you that brochure."

"Yeah, most likely. I'll tell him. Listen, I'm sorry I woke you up. You should get back to sleep, but I want you to call me right away if anything weird happens, okay? You probably _are_ safer there, but I still don't like you being so far away from me when there's something creepy going on."

"I understand, Jane. You try to get some sleep too, okay? And send me a text in the morning, so I know you're all right."

"I will. In the meantime, anyone knocks on your door, don't answer it, okay?"

"I won't."

After Jane hung up with Maura, she called Korsak and told him what happened. They decided he didn't need to come over right away, but she felt better knowing he was aware of the situation, just in case something did happen. She spent the rest of the night on the couch with her gun by her side.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Maura could hardly focus during the last day of her conference. She kept checking her phone for messages from Jane, needing to know she was still okay. She was relieved when it was finally time to board the train back to Boston, even more relieved when the train pulled into South Station, and positively ecstatic when she saw Jane waiting for her. She ran into Jane's arms and held her close.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she murmured contentedly. "I was so worried about you."

"Me too." Jane kissed her. "I'd rather have you close by when there's a threat."

Maura pulled back. "Did you talk to Cavanaugh?"

Jane shook her head. "He was in meetings all day. On the way here I finally got a message from him, saying he's working late in his office if I still need to talk. We could go there now, or I could just take you home. You must be tired."

"I think we should go see him right away. We need to get this taken care of."

"I thought you'd say that."

They drove to the station and walked up together to Cavanaugh's office, Jane carrying the offending Bible in an evidence bag. Maura squeezed Jane's hand as she knocked on Cavanaugh's door.

"Rizzoli," he said, opening the door. "And Dr. Isles. Come in. Have a seat." They both sat in front of his desk and waited while he returned to his chair. "What did you want to talk to me about?" he asked.

"Well, sir, I've been receiving some threatening messages that I believe have come from someone within the department," Jane began. "Last month, someone put a pamphlet protesting same-sex marriage on my desk, under my wedding picture. A few weeks later, the wedding picture itself was stolen, and last night, someone rang my doorbell at home and left this on my doorstep." She put the evidence bag containing the Bible on his desk. "Inside are the remnants of my stolen wedding picture, marking pages with highlighted passages describing how wives are supposed to submit to their husbands, and how 'sexual perverts' can't go to Heaven. They ripped our picture in half to separate Maura and me, and they tore her head off."

They both watched as Cavanaugh carefully dumped the Bible out of the bag and used a pen to turn the pages. "So you believe this came from someone within the department?"

"Yes, sir. They had to be able to come by my desk in the squad room at least twice without anyone noticing."

"Do you have any theories about who it might have been?"

Jane and Maura exchanged a look. "We have one," Maura said tentatively, "but we don't have any solid evidence."

"And what is this theory?"

"Officer Hawthorne from Special Operations," Jane told him.

"Has he said anything to you personally?"

"No," admitted Jane. "I've only spoken to him a few times. I helped his daughter with a homework assignment once, and Maura had sent me flowers that day, which he asked about. He didn't know I was married. I showed him the wedding picture I kept on my desk—the one that was later stolen—and right after that, Maura came upstairs to see me, and he walked right past her like she wasn't there. Immediately after looking at her picture and being told she was my wife."

"While that could be interpreted as rude, it's hardly a threat, Rizzoli," Cavanaugh pointed out.

"I also noticed him giving Jane a peculiar look at the holiday party," Maura added. "It seemed a little predatory to me."

"Is that all?" Cavanaugh asked.

"Yes," admitted Jane reluctantly.

"Lieutenant, I am concerned that whoever has been doing this may have an obsession with Jane," Maura explained urgently. "He highlighted Biblical passages describing how a wife is meant to behave towards her husband, as well as the passage about sexual immorality. Because he has targeted her instead of both of us, my fear is that he is operating under the delusion that he can convince her it's wrong to be married to me, and that she should be with him instead. The situation reminds me a little of Dominick Bianchi." Jane started at the mention of his name, and Maura didn't blame her. She remembered all too well the terror she had felt while watching a live feed of Jane tied to a bed while Dominick tried to get her to remember a honeymoon they'd never been on. Maura had cried a lot that day, and she did _not_ want to repeat it.

"While your obsession theory makes sense, Dr. Isles, it doesn't sound like you have any evidence pointing to anyone in particular," Cavanaugh said sternly. "If you'd like to file a formal complaint, Rizzoli, I will certainly look into it, but I'm not going to focus on any particular officer until you come up with something better than mild rudeness."

Jane nodded, looking defeated. "I'll fill out an incident report immediately."

"Isn't there anything you can do to protect her?" asked Maura.

"We're doing all we can do at this point, Dr. Isles. While this qualifies as harassment, no actual threats have been made, so we can't waste resources this point on hiring a protective detail, especially since we know Detective Rizzoli is fully capable of looking after herself. And as for Officer Hawthorne, you should know that he volunteers at an LGBT community center."

Maura was dumbfounded. "He does?"

"Yes. I believe he said one of his relatives was gay, and he likes to support the community in her honor. So to say there is no evidence of him having homophobic tendencies is an understatement. There is, in fact, evidence to the contrary."

Jane looked thoroughly embarrassed. "I apologize for making unfounded accusations," she said. "I'll have the incident report on your desk by morning."

Maura didn't say anything to Jane as they walked out through the squad room. She was afraid Jane would be angry with her now, as Maura's suspicions had humiliated her in front of her boss. Maura felt a little ashamed herself. It wasn't like her to accuse someone on so little evidence. She didn't believe in listening to her gut, so why couldn't she bring herself to let this go?

"Maura," Jane said quietly, once they were on the elevator. "I know you must be onto something, because you said you had a bad feeling and then bad things started happening, but maybe he's right that we should stop looking at Hawthorne."

"Maybe," agreed Maura. "But if I were you, I would check to see if any of the murder victims had anything to do with that LGBT community center."

"Why's that?"

"It could be that Hawthorne really does support the LGBT community," Maura admitted. "But it could also be how he found his victims."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The following morning, Jane told Korsak and Frankie about her and Maura's uncomfortable meeting with Cavanaugh.

"I have to admit, it took balls to accuse a fellow officer without a shred of evidence," Korsak said. "But Cavanaugh's right. You shouldn't be focusing on Hawthorne. Have you looked into any of the cops who were invited to your wedding, but didn't go?"

"Of course," said Jane. "But if they were going to harass me, why not start when they got the wedding invitation? Why wait until now? This whole thing started not long after that day Haley Hawthorne came to interview me, when I told her dad I was married to Maura. He was new here, so he didn't know."

"She's got a point," said Frankie. "Whoever is doing this probably would have started when they found out about Jane and Maura, and everyone besides Hawthorne knew about them ages ago."

"So let's talk to him," said Korsak.

"I want to," said Jane, feeling her phone buzz. "But we have to figure out the best way to approach him. We can't just run after him with torches and pitchforks, because we don't have any proof, and we don't know what he'll do." She looked at her phone and saw a text from Maura.

"I think we should also show pictures of the murder victims around that LGBT center," Frankie said. "The killer had to know both families from somewhere."

"I'm gonna go check on Maura," said Jane, standing up. "She says she's not feeling well."

She went out to the hallway and pushed the down button for the elevator. Maura had been feeling just fine at breakfast. Her phone buzzed with another text from Maura:

 _Also, thank you for the flower. Where did you get it from?_

Jane frowned. _What flower?_ she typed. She pushed the down button four more times, gave up, and sprinted down the stairs to Maura's office. She found Maura sitting at her desk, typing on her laptop, a striped carnation beside the computer.

"Hey," she said, trying to calm her breath so it didn't sound like she'd just run down three flights of stairs. "I didn't give you a flower."

"Oh." Maura stood unsteadily and stepped towards Jane. Jane instinctively put a protective arm around her, pulling her close, although she regretted that a little when she caught a whiff of Maura's breath.

"Honey, what'd you do, eat an entire garlic clove?"

Maura frowned. "I haven't eaten anything since breakfast."

"When did you start feeling sick?"

Without warning, Maura violently wrenched herself away from Jane, stepping back quickly. "Jane," she said urgently. "Don't touch me. Don't touch anything. I need an ambulance."

Jane pulled out her phone. "Why? What's going on?"

Maura wordlessly fell to her knees and threw up on the floor.

" _Maura!_ " Jane stepped towards her, but Maura held up a warning hand.

"I mean it, Jane, get back. Call 911. Don't touch me." She looked up at Jane, her eyes wild with fear. "Don't touch me. _Don't touch anything_."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

It was some time before they were able to let Jane in to see Maura. After confirming Maura's theory that she had ingested arsenic, they had given her dialysis to remove as much of the poison as possible from her bloodstream, a blood transfusion to replenish her red blood cells, and a painful intramuscular injection of Dimercaprol, a chelating agent. The Dimercaprol's job was to bind itself to the arsenic before the arsenic could bind to her own enzymes, thus allowing the poison to be safely excreted in her urine. Unfortunately, the drug itself was also toxic and came with its own side effects, so she had to be closely monitored for possible complications from both poison and antidote. She hated for Jane to see her the way she was—hooked up to oxygen, IVs, and monitors—but she knew Jane had to be going crazy from _not_ seeing her.

Sure enough, Jane came charging into the room as soon as she was allowed in like a bull in a china shop. She quickly saw that it wasn't going to be easy to hug Maura with all the wires and tubes attached to her, so instead she planted a kiss on her forehead and then took her hand.

"How are you feeling? Are you going to be okay?"

"I feel miserable," Maura admitted. "But I'm very lucky."

"Oh yeah. _So_ lucky. Do you know how many people wake up each morning, thinking, 'Maybe today will be the day when I finally get rushed to the hospital with arsenic poisoning!' But you're the only person in Boston who actually got to do that today!"

Maura gave her a patient look. "I'm extremely lucky, because I was able to identify my symptoms as arsenic poisoning very soon after ingesting the poison, which made it possible to remove most of the poison from my bloodstream through hemodialysis and chelation therapy. Most people with arsenic poisoning assume they have a stomach virus or food poisoning and don't get the necessary treatment right away. You may have actually saved my life by pointing out the garlic odor. That was how I knew."

Jane's face relaxed a little. "Yeah, well, that's what we do in this relationship, isn't it? We take turns saving each other's lives."

Maura squeezed her hand. "Any idea who did this?"

"Other than the suspicions we already have, no. But we did learn that the arsenic was in your coffee, not on the mysterious flower, so we took those decontamination showers for nothing."

"Better safe than sorry," Maura told her. "Perhaps the flower was meant as a warning. I did think it was odd that you gave me a striped carnation, because those symbolize regret. They're usually used for funerals, not romance. But I thought you might not know that, and you're the only one who ever leaves gifts on my desk."

"I never left you a single flower though," Jane said, frowning. "I guess I need to step up my romance game. The person who's trying to fucking _kill you_ is being more romantic than I am."

Maura laughed gently. "That isn't true. But if you do leave me a flower in the future, make sure to attach a handwritten note so I know it's safe to touch."

"Will do." Jane reached up with her free hand to stroke Maura's hair. "But seriously, you're going to be all right?"

"They have to keep me for several days to monitor my kidney and other organs for damage and to continue the chelation therapy, but my prognosis at this point is excellent."

"Your kidney." Maura thought she'd delivered good news, but Jane looked like she'd been slapped.

"Both arsenic exposure and chelation therapy can cause renal damage, but if that happens, there are ways to treat it."

"I _knew_ it was a mistake for you to give your kidney to Cailin! You said you only needed one, but obviously that was wrong. _You_ needed both of them. I never felt good about that, but Hope just kept pressuring you…"

"Jane. I'm going to be fine. Like I said, I was very-"

"Lucky. Yeah, I know." Her face had turned to steel.

"We're going to need to postpone our first IVF cycle," Maura said softly. "So I can have time to recover. I'm still expecting to be able to carry our child, though."

Jane blinked back tears. "If there's any question when the time comes, I still have a good uterus. The most important thing is for you to be healthy."

"In the meantime, what is being done to keep _you_ safe?"

"I'm not concerned for my safety right now. You know who _should_ be concerned for their safety? The asshole who put arsenic in your coffee."

"Jane. You know I'm not their primary target. You're the one who's been receiving threats."

"The most recent of which involved your head being ripped off, not mine. I think he made his intentions clear. And then he followed through, or at least tried."

"He may not be planning to kill you, but if he's obsessed with you like Dominick was, he could certainly hurt you in other ways. The message he has been sending is that you should leave your 'immoral' marriage and enter into a traditional marriage, probably with him. I'm still far more concerned about you than I am about myself."

"Well, you have an officer outside your room, and I'm not leaving your side, so problem solved." She glanced up. "Shit, here's Cavanaugh. Probably wants your statement."

Maura followed her gaze through the window into the hallway. "Who's that lady with him?"

"I think she's with Internal Affairs. That's good. It means they get that the person who did this is one of our own."

"Detective Rizzoli," Cavanaugh said politely as he came into the room. "Do you mind if we speak to Dr. Isles privately for a moment?"

Jane looked uncertainly at Maura.

"I'll be fine," Maura promised her.

"Are you sure? Because they can't make me leave if you want me here."

"I'm sure. Is Angela in the waiting room?"

"Yeah. She wanted to see you, but I told her to wait."

"Go find her, tell her I'm going to be fine, and get something to eat. Then come back."

"Okay," Jane said reluctantly. She gave Maura a quick kiss and headed out.

"Dr. Isles, this is Kathy Rhodes from Internal Affairs," Cavanaugh said, taking a seat next to her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Not well at the moment, but the doctors expect me to make a full recovery."

"I'm very glad to hear that," said Cavanaugh. "Could you tell me what you remember of the incident?"

"Well, I was working in the crime lab approximately between ten and ten-thirty, and then I returned to my office and found a striped carnation on my desk. I found it a little odd, but I initially assumed Jane had put it there. I picked it up and sniffed it, and then I sat down to work on my computer. I had some coffee in an insulated mug on my desk, which I sipped while I worked. Soon afterwards, I began experiencing gastrointestinal discomfort, as well as a headache, and I sent Jane a text to tell her I might have to leave work early. She came down to check on me and noticed that I smelled like garlic, which is a sign of arsenic poisoning, so I told her to call for help."

"And the coffee was in your office while you were in the crime lab?"

"Yes."

"Was your office unlocked?"

"Yes. I usually leave it unlocked when I'm nearby, although I can see now why that perhaps isn't the best thing to do."

Cavanaugh shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "We're still taking reports from people who work in the lab, and we've reviewed security camera footage, but whoever poisoned your coffee appears to have known how to avoid the cameras. We were able to get partial glimpses of a person walking near your office in that time frame, but we couldn't even tell if the person was male or female."

"Well, it doesn't surprise me that they would know where the cameras are," said Maura. "It had to be someone who works in the building. Otherwise, they shouldn't have been able to get anywhere near my office."

"I agree." Cavanaugh cleared his throat. "The problem is, since the threat is coming from within, it's not going to be easy to keep you safe. For all we know, one of the officers we've assigned to guard your room could be the culprit. We think you would be safest if we transferred you to a different hospital and allowed the person who tried to kill you to believe they succeeded."

Maura nodded. She wasn't thrilled with the idea of people being told she was dead, but it was only temporary, and it was better than actually being killed. "Where will I go?"

"We're still working out the details of that. We'll have to discuss options with your doctor, and of course we need your permission to proceed."

"And will Jane be able to come with me?"

Cavanaugh shifted again. "Given that you're supposed to be dead, it would make no sense for her to go with you. Furthermore, since your would-be killer is close to the situation, it's imperative that all reactions to your 'death' be genuine."

Maura could feel the blood draining from her face. "You mean you want Jane to actually think I'm dead?"

"It's only temporary. We believe your memorial service could be a good opportunity to potentially spot the perpetrator."

Maura shook her head. "I can't do that to her."

Cavanaugh sat forward in his seat, his expression intense. "Dr. Isles, everyone knows how much you mean to Jane. People who barely know either of you comment on the connection you two have. Everyone will expect a strong reaction from her, and anything less could tip the killer off to the fact that you aren't actually dead."

"So you want to actually break Jane's heart just to get a big reaction out of her? She would be devastated. I won't do that to her." Maura felt tears welling up just at the thought of it.

Kathy Rhodes spoke up for the first time. "It's also important to consider that Detective Rizzoli could _be_ the one who poisoned you."

"That's ridiculous," said Maura. "Jane wouldn't hurt me. And anyway, she was upstairs with her colleagues when it happened."

"She could still be behind it," Rhodes insisted. "Perhaps she wasn't working alone."

"For what it's worth, I don't believe Jane had anything to do with this," said Cavanaugh. "But it is protocol to investigate the spouse first, and it is my understanding that Jane stands to inherit a substantial amount if you die."

"Jane doesn't care about that! She already has access to my money, but she isn't spending it. She doesn't want to." She looked at him, incredulous. "How many times has she saved my life, risking her own in the process?"

"I am aware of her devotion to you, and I know how hard it must be to do this to her. But it's important to remember that as long as you're in danger, she is too. Need I remind you that my own wife and child were killed by a man who was trying to kill me?"

He didn't need to remind her. The man who killed Cavanaugh's wife and child was her own father.

"She's in danger regardless," she said evenly. "I believe she is the perpetrator's real target."

Cavanaugh held her gaze. "And if that's the case, shouldn't we do everything in our power to catch the perp as quickly as possible?"

Maura's tears began to spill over. "I would do anything to protect her," she said softly. "But I don't know what she'll do if she thinks she's lost me. She's always said she can't live without me. She told me she wants to die one day before me. If she believes I've been murdered, I'm afraid she'll do something reckless."

"We'll keep a very close watch on her. Frankie and Korsak will stay close to her. You know Angela will be with her every possible second. I will personally monitor her every move. We won't let her do anything crazy. And just by seeing how people react to reports of your death, we may be able to catch the perp within a few days. Then you can come home, and you and Jane will both be safe. You can get on with your lives."

"You're asking me to destroy her emotionally in the hopes of protecting her physically."

"What would destroy her is if you really died. This is the best way to prevent that from happening."

Maura tried to wipe her tears away, but they kept coming. Kathy Rhodes passed her a box of tissues.

"I won't lie to her," Maura whispered.

"I won't make you," promised Cavanaugh. "We'll arrange everything with a few trusted members of the hospital staff, and with the police force in the city we move you to. If things go according to plan, we are going to rig the machine so you will 'code' tomorrow afternoon. Anyone who's visiting you will be removed from the room, and that will give us a chance to transport you. If you prefer, we can arrange for you to be sedated shortly before then. It might make it easier on you."

"What if they want to see my body?"

"We are preparing answers to any questions your family might have. Let us handle that while you focus on getting well." He stood up. "I'll give you some time to think about it. I'll come back this evening to speak more with you about it."

"It was very nice to meet you," Kathy Rhodes said as she followed Cavanaugh out of the room. Maura just glared at her. There was no chance of a friendship forming there.

Once they were gone, Maura officially broke down.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

"This is ridiculous." Jane grabbed the call button beside Maura's bed and punched it repeatedly.

"Jane, stop." Maura's hand landed lightly on Jane's wrist.

Jane looked her wife over. Neither of them had slept well the previous night. Jane technically wasn't supposed to spend the night in ICU at all, but she'd made it very clear to the hospital staff that the only way they were going to get her out was in handcuffs. She had to try to sleep in a chair though, because she couldn't possibly sleep on the bed with Maura. Maura was very "plugged-in" at the moment; there was a blood pressure cuff on her left arm that tightened automatically every few minutes, electrodes on her chest to monitor her heart, a nasal cannula on her face, an IV needle in her right arm, and a pulse oximeter on her right index finger. Jane couldn't lie down with her, or even try to hold her, for fear of disrupting something. And she was mad as hell that Maura needed all those things.

Worse still, the hospital staff was clearly doing a terrible job of managing Maura's pain, because she was very weepy.

A nurse finally came into the room and asked what they needed.

"Isn't there anything else you can give her for pain?" Jane demanded testily.

"I've already administered the dosage indicated in the doctor's notes," the nurse told her patiently.

"Then go find the doctor and tell him it isn't enough! Look at her! She can't stop crying, she's obviously in a lot of pain, and you guys aren't doing shit to help her."

"Jane, it's fine," Maura insisted.

"It's _not_ fine. You shouldn't be hurting like this. The whole point of being in a hospital is so they can manage your symptoms!"

"I'll speak with the doctor as soon as he's available," the nurse promised before leaving.

"Jane, come sit with me," Maura pleaded. "You're making me dizzy with all that pacing."

"Sorry." Jane took the seat next to the bed and took Maura's hand in hers. "I wish I could be out looking for the person who did this."

"I'm glad you're here with me instead."

"Whoever it was better be glad I'm not allowed on the case. And when they find out who it is, he'd better hope some other cop gets to him before I do."

There was a knock at the door, and Dr. Clegg, who had been treating Maura, came in. Jane had to admit, he had shown up faster than she was expecting. Maura, however, looked apprehensive.

"Are you here about her pain meds?" Jane asked.

"No," he said hesitantly. "I'm here about her test results."

Jane did _not_ like the way he said that. She squeezed Maura's hand.

"The tests we ran this morning showed that Maura has experienced a rapid decline in kidney function over the past 24 hours, to the point that we now consider her to be in kidney failure. Her liver is also showing a decline in function, and her most recent EKG shows myocardial depression."

Jane felt like a weight had been dropped into her stomach. "What does that mean?"

"It means she's in multiple organ failure."

"But how is that possible? Yesterday you said she was going to be okay."

"It appears the poison did more damage than we originally thought. I'm very sorry."

Jane looked at Maura, who had fresh tears rolling down her face. "I don't understand. There's something you can do, right?"

He shook his head. "At this stage, the only thing we can do is manage her pain."

"Well you aren't even doing that very well!" Jane shouted, standing up. Maura continued to cling to her hand.

Dr. Clegg sighed, and Jane decided she hated him. "She has a few days at most," he said.

"A few days? There have to be a lot of things you can try in a few days! There has to be _something_ that can make her better!"

"I said at most," he told her. "It could only be a matter of hours."

"You still have to try!" Jane stepped towards him, her stance threatening.

"Detective, I can call you a grief counselor if you need one, but right now I have other patients to see. There is nothing else we can do for her right now." He turned to walk away and Jane started to charge after him, but a strangled cry from Maura caused her to turn around just long enough for him to make his escape.

"Maura, you can't possibly believe him, can you?" Jane demanded. "You're not going to die. I won't let that happen."

"I'm sorry," Maura whispered through her tears. "I don't want to do this to you."

"Hey, why are you apologizing?" Jane sat back down and stroked Maura's hair. " _None_ of this is your fault."

"I don't want to leave you." Maura began to cry harder, gasping for air between sobs, which Jane didn't think could possibly be good for someone on oxygen.

"Hey, it's okay. Breathe, sweetie." Jane put an arm over Maura and kissed her face. "You're not going anywhere." Maura felt so warm and alive. There was no way she was dying.

"Hi girls!" Angela came strolling into the room, utterly clueless as to how bad the situation had gotten since her last visit. "I brought that book you asked for," she told Maura, handing her a book of poetry. Jane wondered what the hell made her suddenly want to read poems in the middle of all this.

"Thank you," said Maura, taking the book. "Do you happen to have a pen I could borrow?"

"Sure." Angela dug in her purse. "Well, I have this one that writes in purple ink. Is that okay?"

"It's perfectly fine. Thank you, Angela." Maura took the pen and gave her mother-in-law a sweet, sad smile.

"Ma, could I talk to you outside for a minute?" Jane asked her.

"Of course." Angela followed Jane into the hallway.

"Ma," Jane began uncertainly. "The doctor's saying now that Maura isn't going to make it, that her heart, liver and kidney are failing. He says she has days at the most, maybe just hours."

Angela gave her the kind of stare usually reserved for things like broken vases. "What do you mean, she's not going to make it? Yesterday you said she'd be fine!"

"That's what everyone said yesterday! Now they say she's dying, and there isn't anything else they can do. But she can't be. They just don't know Maura. She's strong. She'll find a way to pull through, right?"

Angela's face softened. "I hope so, baby. I sure hope so."

An hour crept by. Jane suddenly didn't care anymore who had poisoned Maura, as long as she would live through it. Maura was calm for a little while, but as the minutes ticked by, she began to seem increasingly frightened and distraught. It terrified Jane. What the hell would be freaking Maura out so much, unless she could actually feel herself getting closer to death? But she _couldn't_. Jane wasn't planning to let her go.

Eventually Maura's terror grew so palpable that Jane decided to stop worrying about the stupid tubes and wires and just pull her wife into her arms. Holding Maura close made Jane feel better anyway; obviously Maura couldn't go anywhere with Jane holding onto her.

"I don't want to leave you," Maura kept mumbling.

"You won't," Jane would reassure her. "I'm keeping you right here with me."

But Maura would not be consoled. After a while she was sobbing so hard she could hardly breathe, and Jane reluctantly called a nurse to see if there was anything they could do to calm her.

"I'll get a sedative," the nurse promised. Maura looked utterly terrified when the nurse injected the sedative into her IV, and it made Jane a little uneasy too. What if she went to sleep and never woke up? But if she kept crying this hysterically, her heart would give out from the stress, so what else could they do?

"Don't give up on me," Maura said suddenly when the nurse walked out. "Please." Her eyes began to close of their own accord, but she fought it.

"I won't," said Jane, although she had no idea what Maura meant.

"Say the thing," Maura insisted. "The thing you always say. From when you first told me you loved me."

"I love you," said Jane quickly, fearing Maura would slip away before she could say the whole thing. "I love everything about you. I love you more than anything."

Maura smiled weakly. "I love you more than anything too."

Jane wanted to kiss her then, was suddenly terrified that she would never get another chance, but Maura was already asleep. She slowly lowered Maura back onto her pillow, made sure all her wires were still attached, and pressed her lips to Maura's hair. _Please wake up again_ , she thought desperately. _Please don't let that be the end. Wake up and talk to me again, even if it's only for a little while_.

Maura's breathing evened out, and the sound was reassuring. She didn't sound like a dying person; just a sleeping person. Angela left to get coffee, and Jane rested her head on the pillow next to Maura's, her arm across Maura's body, feeling her warmth and the rise and fall of her chest. She stared at Maura's beautiful face, unwilling to close her eyes even though she was exhausted.

But then an alarm went off on the heart monitor, and suddenly the room flooded with doctors and nurses, and one of them was manhandling Jane out of the room.

"Wait!" Jane cried. "That's my wife! I can't leave her!"

"Ma'am, they need to work on her, and you can't be in the way," the person—a nurse, she supposed—told her sternly. She looked through the window into Maura's room, but as she watched, the nurse went back in and pulled the curtain closed around the bed. Jane looked around helplessly and saw her mother coming down the hall with two coffees.

"Mama." Jane ran towards her mother. "Ma, she's coding. Maura's heart stopped."

Angela froze, her mouth hanging open, and then awkwardly put her arms around her daughter, still holding the coffees. Jane leaned against her, legs turning to jelly.

"Come on, Janie, let's go to the waiting room so you can sit down."

"No, I need to stay here," Jane insisted, looking helplessly towards Maura's room.

"They'll know where to find us. Come on." Angela guided her down the hall to the waiting room and into a chair. Jane slumped over, head in her hands, shaking violently. Her mother rubbed her back reassuringly as they waited in silence for what felt like an eternity. After Jane decided she'd waited long enough, she got up and charged out of the room to see what was going on, running headlong into Dr. Clegg on the other side of the door.

"Detective," he said quietly. She stared at him, realizing she couldn't find her voice to ask how Maura was. "I'm really sorry," he told her, reaching to pat her hand, and she could feel her heart shattering into a million pieces. She pushed past him and ran back to Maura's room, determined that if she saw and touched her again she could make her be alive. But when she got to the room, Maura wasn't there. Her bed was empty, the blankets in a heap at the bottom, a small dent in the pillow where her head had been. The blood pressure cuff, nasal cannula, and pulse oximeter were just lying on the bed. The heart monitor was turned off, and the IV bag hung from its pole, still three quarters of the way full. _But Maura needs all of that,_ Jane thought absurdly. She touched the spot where Maura had been. It still felt warm.

She looked up to see her mother and that asshole doctor standing in the room, looking at her. "Where is she?" she asked, surprised at how small her voice sounded.

The doctor cleared his throat. "She was taken away for autopsy."

 _Already?_ Jane thought, but she couldn't get words to come out anymore. Anyway, it was ridiculous. Maura did autopsies on other people. Other people did not do autopsies on her.

The doctor shifted awkwardly, clearly wanting Jane to leave so he could get on with his day. "I'm very sorry, Detective," he said. "She's gone. I can call you a grief counselor—"

"No." Jane slowly sank down onto the empty bed, trying to understand how the person her entire life revolved around could just be gone. She curled up into the tightest ball she could get in and covered her face, trying to shut everyone out.

In that moment, she truly believed she was dying too.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Yale-New Haven Hospital. This was Maura's home for now. They hadn't told her where she was going ahead of time out of fear that she would mention it to someone, so it had been a bit of a surprise. There was a local police officer stationed outside of her room, and the medical staff thought her name was Annie Miller. She had never felt so alone in her life.

Cavanaugh had given her a cell phone with his number programmed in. He was the only person she was allowed to call, although he really hadn't counted on the fact that Maura was good at memorizing numbers. She could certainly call Jane from memory, and Angela, and her own office. She hated to think about what must be happening in her office now. She knew the governor had been notified that her death was being falsely reported in order to protect her and her family, so there was no risk of her actually being replaced, but someone had to fill in temporarily, and whoever it was would genuinely believe she wasn't coming back. She really hoped it wasn't Pike.

She had also convinced Cavanaugh to allow her to call her parents and explain the situation. Given that they had never been that demonstrative—especially not her mother—she believed that no one would expect a strong, public reaction from them. Therefore, it would not harm the investigation for them to know their daughter was alive, and they could be trusted not to share the information with anyone. She wanted to spare them any unnecessary suffering and, if she were to be completely honest, she wasn't sure she wanted to know how they would react if they genuinely believed her to be dead.

The temptation to call Jane and let her know she was all right was overwhelming. Her heart ached just thinking about what Jane must be going through right now, and she still didn't know if she had made the right choice. Cavanaugh was certain that letting everyone think she was dead was the best way to keep both her and Jane safe, but what if he was wrong? If Jane did something reckless and got killed or badly hurt because she believed Maura was dead, Maura would never forgive herself. As it was, she didn't know if Jane would ever forgive her. The only consolation she had was Cavanaugh's promise that he would tell Jane exactly what was happening—and put her in touch with Maura—as soon as he determined there was no longer a need for her "genuine reaction." Hopefully he would decide that soon after her funeral. And, if not, there was still the hope that Jane would find the subtle message Maura had left for her. Cavanaugh didn't know about that, but there was really no way Maura was going to leave Jane in this situation without any clue as to what was actually happening. He was crazy if he thought she would.

The Dimercaprol made her feel weak, but she slept fitfully, dreaming constantly of Jane in trouble. She dreamt of Jane throwing herself from a building in an effort to be reunited with Maura. She dreamt of Jane being poisoned and having no one around to save her. She dreamed once that she went back home and tried to tell Jane she was still alive, but Jane couldn't see or hear her. On the afternoon of her third day in Connecticut, she had a very ordinary dream about waking up in her own bed with Jane by her side, and this dream made her cry harder than any of the others.

She was still drying her tears when Dr. Delacruz, the only member of her medical team who knew her actual identity, came into the room.

"How are you feeling today?" Dr. Delacruz asked with a sympathetic smile. Maura liked her better than the doctor she'd been given in Boston, although she felt like Stockholm Syndrome might be coming into play. She was cut off from everyone she cared about. She had no choice but to be fond of the people who were caring for her here.

"About the same as yesterday, except I'm having some chest pains."

"Your heart rate is somewhat irregular. It could be stress-related, but I'll order an echocardiogram to be sure."

Maura knew that a surge of stress hormones could temporarily disrupt the heart's rhythm, but she didn't have the energy to discuss it. Instead she just looked down at her hands, at the wedding rings she'd been compulsively twisting, and mumbled, "My wife thinks I'm dead."

"I know. You're in a very stressful situation right now, which makes healing difficult. I think I'm going to start you on a low dose of Xanax, to help keep your anxiety down."

"Okay."

"And, I'm not supposed to do this, but you said you really wanted to access the internet. I know you must be feeling very cut off from the world." Maura looked up and saw that Dr. Delacruz was offering her a tablet. "It's my daughter's. You can have it until tomorrow, as long as you promise not to log in to any websites. No email, no social media, no work sites or bank accounts. If you do, it may be possible for someone to track your location, and I'll be held responsible."

Maura gratefully accepted the tablet. "I promise not to sign in anywhere. I just want to look some things up."

"You might want to avoid reading any accounts of your 'death' as well."

"I'm not even tempted to do that. I don't want to know how people are reacting." She turned on the tablet and fired up the internet browser, feeling relieved that she could finally _do_ something instead of just waiting. "Thank you," she said, forcing a smile.

"You're welcome. I hope it helps. And, hopefully, you'll be back home soon."

"I just hope they want me back."

"Why wouldn't they?"

Maura set the tablet on her lap and started fidgeting with her rings again. "It's not the first time my death has been faked. When I was born, my father told my mother I had died so he could put me up for adoption. She mourned my death, and then she learned to accept it. And when she found out years later that I was still alive, she was very upset at first. She's tried to move past that and form a relationship with me, but it's never come naturally, because I don't think she can reconcile herself with the fact that I am the baby she lost. In her mind, that baby will always be dead."

"So you're worried your loved ones will mourn your death now and will be unable to accept you when you return."

Maura wiped away a tear. "They might. Accepting that someone you love is gone requires a major adjustment. They might not be able to adjust again when they find out I'm alive."

Dr. Delacruz patted her hand. "I think the police are trying very hard to make sure no one has time to adjust to you being gone."

Maura nodded uncertainly and watched Dr. Delacruz leave the room. Then she picked the tablet back up. Jane, she was pretty sure, was still in danger, and she was not going to just sit back and wait for something to happen.

She began searching news articles, trying to see if there were other unsolved murder cases where a man had gotten his throat slit while his wife was stabbed. There was a lot to wade through, but soon she began finding cases that were quite similar to the two they were working on. She asked a nurse for pen and paper and began making a list. By the time dinner came, she had made a chronological second draft of her list:

 _1\. May 2, 2005 Belleville, IL. Husband and wife._

 _2\. May 19, 2006 Belleville, IL. Husband, wife, two sons (15 and 8)._

 _3\. June 28, 2007 Greensboro, NC. Husband, wife, daughter (10), son (6)._

 _4\. Jan. 5, 2008 Winnetka, IL. Husband, wife, son (7)._

 _5\. May 10, 2009 Winnetka, IL. Husband and wife._

 _6\. Nov. 20, 2009 Dallas, TX. Husband and wife._

 _7\. Sep. 30, 2010 Dallas, TX. Husband and wife._

 _8\. Dec. 13, 2010 Tacoma, WA. Husband, wife, son (4)._

 _9\. July 28, 2011 Tacoma, WA. Husband, wife, son (10), daughter (8)._

 _10\. Jan. 4, 2012 Tacoma, WA. Husband and wife._

 _11\. June 15, 2012. Baltimore, MD. Husband, wife, 3 sons (8, 5, and 3)_

 _12\. July 27, 2013. Baltimore, MD. Husband and wife._

 _13\. Nov. 18, 2014. Boston, MA. Husband and wife._

 _14\. Dec. 14, 2014. Boston, MA. Husband, wife, son (8), daughter (5)._

It was a longer list than she had expected, and she hoped some of it was just coincidental. But they all fit the profile. All were relatively young, professional, Caucasian couples. Always the men, and sons if there were any, had their throats cut. The women had all been viciously stabbed, and the few little girls who had been killed were all smothered. She wasn't sure why the two Boston killings were so much closer together than the others, but she was keenly aware of the fact that the first had happened the day after she and Jane had celebrated six months of marriage—which also happened to be the same day Jane had told Hawthorne she was married to Maura. Still, it didn't quite add up. If he hated women being with women so much, why was he killing heterosexual couples?

She called Cavanaugh and read him the list. "You are just like Rizzoli," he told her.

"How so?" she asked.

"You both keep working cases even when you're supposed to be on medical leave. Or even break cases wide open when you're supposed to be dead, as the case may be."

"Did I break it open?" she asked hopefully.

"It's too soon to say, but you may have."

"There's actually more."

He chuckled. "Of course there is."

"Officer Hawthorne lived in each of those cities at the times when the murders took place. Those are all the places he's lived since his house burned down in 2004."

There was a pause. "Is that so."

"That's enough to at least bring him in for questioning, right?"

"Yeah, it is, though not enough to hold him. But it's certainly a starting point."

"So you'll talk to him?"

"I'll talk to him. But I still don't see a connection between these killings and what's happened to you and Rizzoli. Why would someone who volunteers at an LGBT community center and potentially kills straight couples want to harass, and possibly murder, a couple of women?"

"Of the two women he murdered in Boston, one was bisexual and the other sponsored a high school gay-straight alliance. Jane was going to look into whether they were connected to the center he volunteers at, but I don't know what she found out, if anything. My thinking was that he could be scouting for possible victims by volunteering there."

"It's possible, but why kill women with husbands just because they have some connection to the gay community? Why not just kill lesbian couples? And why come after you and Jane now? I don't see a connection."

"I haven't put it all together yet, but in both cases, we keep coming back to Hawthorne. I really hope you can find something to hold him on."

"I'll do my best. You have to understand, it's a process. Just because we suspect him doesn't mean we can just toss him in jail."

"I know. I understand the process." She paused. "How is Jane?"

"It's hard to say. She's been holed up at home ever since..."

"Have you talked to Angela?"

"Yes. She's taking good care of Jane. She'll be fine."

"What is Jane doing?"

"I don't really know. She hasn't gone out and tried anything stupid, though, and I don't plan on telling her what you just told me."

"But she's safe."

"I don't think anyone can get near her right now. Her mother's with her, both of her brothers are staying at the house, Korsak's there a lot. She's well-protected."

Maura let out her breath. "Good. Do you think…do you think I'll be able to come home soon?"

"It depends. Your memorial service is tomorrow. We'll all be watching the people who attend to see if anyone seems suspicious. I'll hold off on questioning Hawthorne until after that so I can see if he shows up. If we determine he's the one who poisoned you, then you can come back as soon as we arrest him. If not, it may be safe to at least let Jane know you're all right once the service is out of the way."

"I really hope so. It's not good for her to be under this kind of stress."

" _Are_ you all right?"

"I'm okay. I'm on a much lower dose of the chelating agent, and the arsenic is leaving my system. I haven't developed any complications, except for a slightly irregular heart rhythm, but that's likely stress-related. I think I'll be okay once I'm back with Jane."

"I'll try to make that happen as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you get some rest. I'll take the case from here."

Maura felt tears welling up, not wanting to let go of her only link to home. "Please keep her safe for me," she said softly before making herself hang up.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

 _"But now she's an angel and I'm not. Now she's an angel and I'm not."_

 _-Johnny Cash, July 11, 2003_

Jane wasn't really sure why she was still alive, why her body was still functioning. Somehow, her heart kept pumping blood through her body, and her lungs kept sucking in air, even though it seemed like it all should have stopped as soon as it stopped for Maura. She didn't know it was possible to survive this kind of pain.

Jane had never lived in a world without Maura before. True, it had taken them over thirty years to actually find each other, but they had both been on the planet for almost exactly the same length of time. And once Jane had found Maura, they had quickly become inseparable. She didn't know how to live without her. She didn't want to.

She had been staying in the guest house with her mother for the past few days. She couldn't stand to be surrounded by Maura's things right now. It would make it seem like Maura was actually there, and Maura wasn't there. She would never be there again. Eventually, Jane would be forced to decide what to do about the house. She could sell it, give away Maura's things, start over somewhere new. But the idea of destroying everything Maura had built over the years seemed unbearable. She could just leave everything as it was and live out her life in that house, assuming she could eventually bring herself to go back in. But the idea of living there without Maura also seemed unbearable.

No matter how she looked at it, the rest of Jane's life seemed unbearable.

Her arms felt frighteningly empty. She could easily remember how Maura had felt in her arms, how readily she fit there, but the actual sensation—Maura's body pressed against hers, her head on Jane's shoulder, her small frame wrapped up in Jane's arms—that was something Jane would never experience again. She didn't know how to accept that.

She lifted her head just slightly from her position curled up on the couch when her mother came bustling into the guest house carrying a black dress. "You need to get up and shower so you'll be ready for the funeral," Angela told her. "I found you something to wear."

"I'm not going," Jane said, putting her head back down.

"Janie, you can't skip your own wife's funeral."

"Yes I can. I don't want to hear people who didn't even know her that well talk about how wonderful she was."

"Jane, she'd want you to be there."

"Well, she won't know, will she?"

"She might. You don't know that. Maybe she's watching you wallow on the couch right now."

"Well then she'll understand." Jane sat up suddenly, a thought having struck her. "Is the funeral on a boat?"

"No, why would it be on a boat? Why would you even want it to be on a boat? You hate boats."

" _Maura_ wanted her funeral to be on a boat. She told me what she wanted when we were still engaged. She was very specific." Their conversation about last wishes came flooding back, and she realized she'd made a horrible mistake by letting Maura's parents plan the funeral. At the time, all she had been able to think was that planning the funeral meant accepting that Maura was dead, which she wasn't ready to do. "Shit," she said, rubbing her face. "I fucked up."

"I know you're grieving, but that is no way to talk around your mother," Angela said sharply. She sat down next to Jane and tried to put her arms around her, but Jane squirmed away. "Janie, I'm sorry this is happening, but you're not alone. We _all_ loved Maura. We're _all_ grieving right now."

"But she was _my_ wife." Jane rubbed her face again, hating the question she was about to ask. "What are they doing with her…body?"

"Her parents had her cremated."

" _What?_ Maura didn't want to be cremated! She wanted to be buried at sea!"

"Buried at sea? Is that even legal?"

"You have to get special permits, but…she trusted me to do that for her." Jane's shoulders slumped as she realized she had failed her wife in every way possible.

"Well, we can pour her ashes out in the sea. You're the one who gets to keep them. I'll go with you to do it, whenever you're ready. But for now, will you please get cleaned up and get ready for the funeral?"

Jane lay back down. "I'm not going," she insisted. "It's all wrong. It's not even what she wanted."

Angela sighed and walked back out of the guest house. Jane knew she couldn't possibly have given up that easily, so she wasn't surprised when Cavanaugh came in shortly afterwards.

"Rizzoli," he said politely, sitting down across from her. "I understand that you're refusing to come to the funeral."

"It's _my_ wife's funeral. I don't see why anyone else gives a shit if I go or not."

"I understand that all you want to do right now is let yourself fall apart. I do. I fell apart when my wife and son were killed."

"And now you're going to tell me all about how you pulled yourself back together again."

"No, I'm not. Actually, I was going to remind you that it took twenty years for me to find out who killed them. They deserved better than that, and so does Maura. Today, Korsak, Frankie, and I will be going to the funeral not just to mourn an outstanding human being, but to keep an eye on everyone in attendance. You know that whoever killed her is likely to be there today, checking out his handiwork, and if he killed her to get to you, then he's going to be particularly interested in watching you. We have a much better chance of catching this guy if you're there."

Jane sat up and then pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. "Okay," she said. "I'll go."

XXX

Jane barely took in a word at the funeral. She was too busy scanning the audience for someone behaving oddly, or for any sign of Hawthorne. He didn't show, however, and no one else seemed suspicious, so the whole thing was a waste of time. It didn't even feel like a real funeral to her. It wasn't anything like what Maura had wanted, and anyway, Maura wasn't supposed to be dead. There was no coffin, no evidence that anyone _was_ dead; just an urn full of ashes, and those could have come from anywhere. The only sign that this was supposed to be Maura's funeral was that there were pictures of her everywhere.

Jane's breath seemed to stop when she looked at the pictures. It had never really ceased to amaze her that someone as beautiful as Maura could be hers; sometimes, it was hard to believe she was even real. Maura's beauty used to be painful. It used to be something she could enjoy from a respectable distance, but could never admit to enjoying. Then for two blissful years, Jane had had the privilege of being allowed to tell Maura every day how beautiful she was, of being allowed to stare as much as she wanted, even to touch.

Now Maura was just ashes, and her beauty existed only in pictures. To say it was painful again didn't even begin to describe it.

When the service was over, Jane tried to just leave, but her mother dragged her over to a spot beside Constance and Arthur, and she realized she was supposed to stand there and let people offer her their condolences on the way out. As much as every cell in her body was screaming at her to just run away, she stood still and peered into the face of each and every person who claimed to be so very sorry for her loss (as if the word "loss" could even begin to cover it). She searched for some signal that one of them at least knew something, but no one did anything out of the ordinary.

And then Hope walked up, and Jane lost all of her composure.

"I'm so sorry," said Hope, squeezing Jane's hand. Jane wrenched her hand away.

"You're sorry?" she said quietly. "You want me to believe you're sorry? You were disappointed when you found out Maura wasn't dead in the first place. You're probably relieved now that she really is."

Hope shook her head. "Not at all. I—"

"It's your fault we're here today," Jane insisted, her voice growing louder. "She died from a poison that damaged her kidney. Her _kidney_ , singular, because she only had one. If she'd still had two, maybe she could have recovered, but you weakened her. You wouldn't stop harassing her until she handed over her kidney." She was aware of Cailin crying behind Hope, but she didn't care.

"Maura _wanted_ to give her—"

"You _sacrificed_ one daughter for the other. I will never forgive you for that." Suddenly Jane felt herself being pulled away from the confrontation, and she realized her mother and Frankie both had hold of her arms. Suddenly she was outside, and then she was being pushed into the backseat of Frankie's car, and then someone pressed the urn holding what was left of Maura into her hands. Her anger dissipated then, and she dissolved into tears.

Somehow, a smile that could light up a room, glittering hazel eyes, silky golden tresses, gentle hands, a body that fit so perfectly in Jane's arms, and a brain that seemed to hold all the information in the world had been reduced to this.

How could someone who took up so much space in Jane's life fit into such a small container?

"Oh, Janie." Angela got in next to Jane and wrapped her arms around her. Jane didn't have the strength to pull away this time. She was dimly aware of Frankie getting into the driver's seat and the car starting to move.

"I'm a homicide detective," she whispered when her shuddering sobs had finally started to subside. "But I couldn't keep my own wife from being murdered."

"Janie, it's not your fault," Angela promised. "Maura wouldn't want you blaming yourself."

"We weren't even married a whole year. We were supposed to get old together. We had plans, Ma. We were about to start trying for a baby." She took a shaky breath, the full reality of what she'd lost crashing down on her. "We weren't going to tell anyone we were trying until we were sure it had worked, but we were about to start in vitro. We chose a sperm donor, and they were going to harvest my eggs and implant one in Maura after it was fertilized. Then we were going to use one of her eggs for the next baby, because we wanted two. And then she wanted to buy a better house for raising children in. She wanted a Victorian house with a big front porch. She wanted to be able to sit in the porch swing with a glass of wine on summer evenings." Jane closed her eyes, picturing the scene clearly. Maura with her wine. Jane sitting with her arm around her. Their two kids playing on the front lawn.

Angela squeezed her daughter. "Maura would have been a great mother."

"She would have been amazing." Jane fingered her wedding band, once a reassuring symbol that she belonged to someone, that someone loved her more than anyone else. "She didn't even die peacefully. I know she was sleeping at the end, but that didn't count. In the last moments when she was actually aware of her surroundings, she was suffering. She had been in pain for hours. She kept crying off and on, and I would get on them about giving her better pain medicine, and they kept saying they'd done all they could. It made me so mad. And then, right at the end, she was so scared. I never really thought she'd be that scared of dying. She's around death all the time, you know?"

"Jane, it's natural to be scared when you're dying. Maura's only human."

"No, I know, I'm not putting her down for being scared. It's just I've seen her with a knife at her throat. I've seen her with a gun to her head. And she was scared, but not nearly so scared as she was in that hospital. It was like she was afraid of something even worse than dying."

Angela frowned. "What would be worse than dying?"

"I would prefer death to what I'm going through right now."

"Janie." Angela stroked her hair. "That's probably what she was afraid of. She was afraid of how hard her death would be on you, of not being able to take care of you anymore. Which is why you need to take care of yourself."

"She told me not to give up on her. What does that even mean?"

"I don't know, honey. She was sick. Her body was shutting down. She may not have even known what she was saying."

"I should have tried to make it easier on her. She's such a selfless person. Even when she knew she was dying, all she could think about was how hard it would be on me. I should have told her I'd be okay, just to put her mind at ease, so she wouldn't have to be so upset. I hate that her last moments were like that. All I could think about was that I couldn't let her die, when I should have just accepted it for her sake. How could she relax and go quietly when she knew I couldn't even begin to deal with it? She fought it _so hard_."

"Jane, don't beat yourself up. You wanted to believe she would be okay. That's natural. I wanted to believe it too."

A thought suddenly hit Jane as she continued to finger her ring. "Where are Maura's wedding rings? They didn't incinerate them, did they?"

"I wouldn't think so. Maybe they're in the bag of Maura's things that the hospital sent home. I just put it on the kitchen counter and never looked at what was in it. Too many other things going on."

Frankie pulled into the driveway and Jane slowly got out of the car, cradling Maura's ashes. She wasn't exactly sure what to do with them. She supposed her mother was right, that they should go out on a boat and dump them in the ocean. It was the closest she could get to actually following Maura's last wishes. She hoped Maura could forgive her for this, for everything.

Before she went in, Frankie pulled her into his arms, the urn awkwardly sandwiched between them. "I have to get back to work," he told her. "I'll come back tonight."

Jane nodded. "I want you to go. I need you to catch the bastard who did this."

"That's what I'm trying to do." He gave Jane one last squeeze. "I know this is hitting you the hardest, but we all miss her. She was a really good person."

"She was perfect," Jane insisted. "And this world was never really good enough for her, but…I wanted her to be here anyway."

She walked into her house for the first time since Maura died. It affected her the same way she had feared it would: the smell, the feel of the house instantly hit her, and it seemed impossible that Maura was not there. She could see her so clearly, standing behind the kitchen counter, taking something out of the oven with a smile. She could also see her sitting on the couch with a book, working at her desk, eating at the table. She could see Maura at every point in their relationship: Maura her best friend, Maura her girlfriend, Maura her fiancée, Maura her wife. Maura the mother of her child would never get a chance to exist.

Jane's heart seized. She had no best friend now, no life companion, no future. The best thing she could hope for was that her own death would come soon, so she could be reunited with her love. She would follow Maura anywhere.

She carefully situated the urn on the fireplace and picked up the plastic bag containing Maura's things from the hospital. She begged her mom to let her have a little time alone and, steeling herself, carried the bag to her bedroom.

Another wave of almost unbearable emotion hit her when she saw their bed. She could almost see Maura, naked and breathtaking, asleep on her side of the bed with a sweet little smile on her face. Jane's body was wracked with such pain that for a moment she couldn't move, couldn't even breathe. Finally it subsided just enough that she was able to walk to the bed and lightly run her hand over Maura's spot. Then she took a deep breath and poured the contents of the bag onto the bed.

There was Maura's purse, which Jane had made a point of bringing when she followed the ambulance to the hospital. She would have to go through that later, even though it felt wrong. Maura's purse was supposed to be private. Jane only reached into it when Maura had explicitly told her to do so. Aside from the purse, there was only Maura's book and that purple pen Angela had lent her. No wedding rings. She would have to call Constance and ask if she'd gotten them from the funeral home.

She picked up the book. Ralph Waldo Emerson, _The Conduct of Life_. She wondered what could have caused Maura to want this particular book just hours before her death. Angela had said that Maura had texted her that morning asking her to bring this specific volume, telling her exactly where to find it in the study, so it must be important somehow.

Jane turned the book over in her hands, inspecting it, and noticed one of the pages had been turned down. That was certainly odd. Maura believed firmly that all civilized people used bookmarks. Once Jane had turned a corner down in a book she had borrowed from Maura, and she thought she'd never hear the end of it.

Jane opened to the marked page and saw a poem entitled "IX: Illusions," with two lines circled in purple ink. Her heart began to pound. If Maura thought turning corners down was wrong, she thought _writing_ in books was a serious crime. She wouldn't have done it unless she had a very important message to convey. Jane read the circled passage:

 _Sleep is not, death is not;_

 _Who seem to die live._

The last line was also underlined: " _Who seem to die live_." The word "live" was underlined four times. Jane's breath caught in her throat. It was all starting to come together. The funeral that was all wrong. Maura being cremated, and the hospital taking her body away before Jane could see her. The wedding rings that didn't seem to be anywhere. Maura imploring Jane not to give up on her. Cavanaugh visiting Maura's hospital room twice in one day and insisting on talking to Maura alone each time. Maura crying even though her pain was supposedly being managed. Maura dying the day after she and her doctor had both claimed she was going to be fine. Breathlessly, Jane crept downstairs, dodging visitors who were bringing by food. She figured Cavanaugh would have gone straight back to his office from the funeral, so she slipped out the back door and drove off before her mother could notice.

When she got to BPD, she ignored everyone who greeted her with "Rizzoli! What are you doing here?" or "I heard about Dr. Isles…" and charged straight up to Cavanaugh's office. She didn't bother knocking. She just barged in, slamming the door behind her. He looked up in shock and she fixed him with a glare.

"All right," she demanded. "Where the hell is she?"


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Maura was trying hard not to go crazy. Her funeral was probably over by now, but she still hadn't heard from Cavanaugh. She was hoping he would call to say that he'd found a suspect, questioned Hawthorne, or, most importantly, that he'd told Jane the truth. She desperately wanted to know how Jane was doing. More than anything, she wanted to at least talk to her again. She needed to hear her voice.

She felt vulnerable being in the hospital by herself. It was hard not to think about the last time she'd been hospitalized, almost two years ago now, after her abduction. This at least wasn't as bad as that, but it was impossible to keep the memories from coming up. She needed Jane. Jane had never left her side that last time, and she wouldn't have this time if she hadn't been forced. Jane always made her feel like everything would be okay, her promise of unconditional love wrapping Maura up like a blanket. _Unconditional_. She had to trust that that word was true, that every promise Jane had ever made to her was true, that what she had done to Jane wouldn't change any of that.

She had another borrowed tablet today, this one from a nurse who felt bad that Maura wasn't getting any visitors. She had run out of research ideas related to the case, but she needed something to keep her mind occupied, so she started exploring the games. She found a game called Angry Birds where you had to use physics to knock down structures with green pigs in them. She was pleased with how quickly she was advancing through the levels, although she didn't feel like the laws of physics were being portrayed in an entirely accurate manner. It would have helped if she'd known how much the birds were supposed to weigh, and how fast they were capable of going, and the height and mass of the blocks, boards, and rocks she was trying to knock over, so she could write a reliable equation. But even if she could write an equation, would it even work in this virtual world?

She was just frowning at a block that should have fallen over, but did not, when she heard a voice in the hallway saying, "Hey! You can't go in there!" She looked up just in time to see a mass of raven curls ducking under the outstretched arm of the officer stationed outside her room.

" _JANE!_ " she cried, ecstatic. Jane abandoned a rolling suitcase in the middle of the room, ran to the bed, and pulled Maura into her arms, holding her like she would never let go.

"Ma'am, you can't come in here," the officer said, flustered. "I'm under strict orders not to allow any visitors."

"No, it's okay!" Maura assured him, unable to wipe the grin off her face as she clung to her wife. "This visitor is always allowed!"

The officer withdrew uncertainly and began to call someone.

Maura kissed Jane's face, kissed it over and over again, running her fingers over Jane's curls to assure herself that she was real. Jane seemed unwilling to let go, and Maura soon realized that she was crying. "My Jane," she said softly. "I'm so sorry for putting you through this."

"Don't be sorry," said Jane. "I know Cavanaugh pushed you into it. I'm just glad you're here." She pulled back a little to look at Maura's face, her eyes tracing every feature, her lips slowly curling into a smile. She kissed Maura deeply, then planted kisses all over her face, took Maura's hands and kissed those too. She ran her fingers through Maura's hair and down her back. "You're not as plugged in as before."

Maura shook her head. "I'm doing much better. My heart rhythm is off, but they did an echocardiogram, and it's just stress-induced cardiomyopathy. I'll be fine."

"Cavanaugh said there was something weird with your heart that might be stress-related. He didn't want to tell me where you were at first because he's going to get flak from Internal Affairs, since they still see me as a suspect, but then he thought of your heart thing and said you might get better faster if I was with you. Also, I yelled at him. A lot."

Maura scooted over and patted the bed beside her. Jane climbed in and they put their arms around each other. "So you got my message?"

"Yeah, I found it a few hours ago, and went straight to Cavanaugh to make him tell me where you were. I can't believe you defaced a book."

Maura smiled. "I didn't even hesitate. I don't even feel bad about it! I had to let you know I wasn't really dead."

"You're never, ever, ever allowed to die for real. You know that, right?" Jane said, stroking Maura's face.

"I'm going to have to eventually."

"Not before me. I just went through hell believing I had lost you. It's your turn next time. All I want is to die one day before you. That's all I ask."

"Mm, okay. But one day is all you get." She laced her fingers with Jane's. "So they questioned you? I told the Internal Affairs lady it was ridiculous to suspect you, but she didn't listen."

"Yeah, some of the IA people grilled me, but it wasn't so bad. I know the spouse is always the first suspect. I wasn't that upset. I mean, it was hard to be upset about anything else when I thought I'd lost you." Jane smiled, stroking Maura's hair. "But look at you! You're here! You're _breathing_! That is officially my favorite thing that you do." She scooted down and put her head on Maura's chest, listening to her breath and her heartbeat. Maura wrapped her arms tightly around her.

"Have you found out anything about who did this? Cavanaugh said he'd question Hawthorne after the funeral, but first he wanted to see if Hawthorne would come to the service."

"He didn't come." Jane pulled her head back and looked at Maura. "Why is he questioning Hawthorne? I thought he didn't have enough evidence for that."

"He didn't until I did some research." Maura grabbed her list from the nightstand and handed it to Jane. "These are all dates of murders that were very similar to the ones we've been investigating. And Hawthorne lived in all of those cities at the times when those murders happened."

Jane gave a low whistle. "That's definitely reason enough to question him." She looked back up at her wife and grinned. "Good work, Maura. You might make detective yet."

"I learned from the best," Maura said, grinning back.

"Well we learned a little on our side too. Frankie showed pictures of our murder victims around the LGBT community center where Hawthorne volunteers, and people recognized them. Carol Martin's been there a lot to volunteer with their youth group, and Ashley Bibler came in once shortly before she was murdered for some kind of support group or something."

"So it's very possible that he volunteers there so he can find targets that fit his standards."

"At this point, I would call it likely."

Jane smiled at Maura, unable to control her glee at seeing her again. Maura took Jane's head in her hands and kissed her again. "I love you so much."

"I love you too." Jane ran a hand down Maura's side and back up again. "And I _may_ have told everyone that you were perfect and that you were too good for this world, while I thought you were dead."

Maura laughed.

"But you know what? I meant it."

"Oh Jane." Maura traced Jane's lips with her thumb.

"I also told my mom that we were about to start in vitro. So, that's not really a secret anymore. She's gonna bug us every step of the way now."

"It's okay. That's a pretty small crime compared to what I did to you."

"Hey, I don't blame you for that. Cavanaugh convinced you that it was the only way to keep us both safe. I absolutely blame him, and the IA people, for deciding to put us through all this. I know _you_ wanted me to know you were alive. That's why you left that clever little message."

"He said I couldn't tell you at all, in any way, so I had to find a way to tell you without telling you. I knew you'd understand, because you're a good detective." She snuggled in even closer to Jane, not wanting the tiniest bit of space between them right now. "Does anyone know where you are?"

"Cavanaugh knows, but he can't tell anyone, because you're still supposed to be dead. I left Ma a note telling her I needed to get away and promising I wouldn't drive off a cliff or anything. I'm sure she's going nuts, but I had to see you. I _had_ to."

"I understand."

"I left my phone behind so I couldn't be traced. I got a bunch of cash from an ATM before I left Boston so I wouldn't have to use a card on the road, because then I could be traced, and that might lead people to you."

"How much cash did you get?"

"The most it would let me get was $1,000, so that's what I got. Just to be safe." Jane got up to retrieve the suitcase she'd left in the middle of the floor. "I brought your purse and some clothes for you to change into, for when you're discharged. I also grabbed a couple medical journals, in case you were getting bored." She set the purse and journals on the nightstand.

"Jane. You are the best wife ever."

"You really think so?" Jane got back into bed with Maura, wrapping her arms around her again. "I've been feeling like a failure. I let you get murdered, and I was too upset to plan your funeral, so it ended up being all wrong. It was a big, public affair at a funeral home, and they had you cremated. It was nothing like what you asked for."

"Jane." Maura kissed her wife tenderly. "I wasn't murdered, and I wasn't cremated, and it wasn't my real funeral. And I have my last wishes on file, so in the event of my real death, whoever is in charge of planning will know what to do. It didn't go the way I asked because it wasn't real. They had to pretend to cremate me, or people would have wondered where my body was!"

"Yeah, I get that now. At the time I felt horrible."

Maura kissed her face. "You can feel better now, because you haven't let me down in any way."

Jane closed her eyes, trying to fight off tears, and pulled Maura closer. "My sweet Maura," she murmured. "I'm never going to let go of you again. I'm just going to hold you forever and ever."

"Sounds good to me."

Maura fell asleep in Jane's arms and woke up the next morning to Jane staring at her. Jane smiled when she saw Maura's eyes open. "Good morning, beautiful," she whispered.

Maura wrapped her arms around Jane's neck and kissed her in response. "I'm so glad you found me," she murmured. "And that you're not mad at me. I was so afraid you would be!"

Jane tucked a strand of Maura's hair behind her ear. "I know you didn't want to do this. I don't think I'd ever seen you as upset as you were before they sedated you. At the time I thought you were scared of dying, but now I know you were scared of what you were doing to me. I can't be mad." She kissed Maura's cheek. "Besides, when I thought you were dead, all I could think about was how much I wanted to hold you and talk to you again. Now that I actually can, I'm not going to waste my time yelling at you."

Maura smiled. "How is everyone else doing? Are they upset?"

"Of course they're upset, Maura. I keep telling you, everybody loves you. They're upset about you, and they're worried about me. They'll all be overjoyed when they find out you're alive."

"I wish we could tell them. I don't like making people suffer."

"I know, sweetie. We'll tell them as soon as we're sure it's safe. As much as I hate what happened, Cavanaugh's right that the only way to be sure this creep doesn't try to kill you again is to make sure he thinks it worked the first time."

Maura nodded unhappily. "I hope it doesn't take long."

"Me too. Also, I _might_ have yelled at Hope after the funeral and said it was her fault you died because she made you give up your kidney, so she's probably feeling doubly bad right now."

Maura gave Jane a reproachful look, but she couldn't help smiling. "I'll call her when I get back."

A few hours later, Cavanaugh finally called with an update. Maura put the phone on speaker. "I've been trying to track down Hawthorne so I can talk to him, but he didn't show up for work today, and apparently his daughter isn't at school either. I sent an officer by his house, but no one was home."

"That's weird," said Jane. "Is there any way he could know we're on to him?"

"I'm not sure who could have tipped him off, but either he found out somehow or he has other plans. Rizzoli, you're probably safer where you are. I'll tell your mother I talked to you so she knows you're all right."

"I feel like I just upset everyone for nothing by going into hiding," Maura complained. "It didn't make my killer come forward. We still know nothing."

"You don't have a killer," Jane reminded her. "You're still alive."

"There's a person who _thinks_ they're my killer."

"It hasn't been for nothing," Cavanaugh promised. "You're safe for now, and you wouldn't be if you were still in Boston and everyone knew you were alive."

"I just hope it ends up being worth it."

"I'll call back if we find Hawthorne or if anything else happens," Cavanaugh told them. "In the meantime, you two keep staying under the radar."

Jane hung up the phone and looked at Maura. "You know I'm going to have to go back, right?"

"Back to Boston? But you're safer here with me!"

Jane touched Maura's hair. "I want to stay with you. I really want to. But I want even more to take you back home and tell everyone you're alive, get you better, and then have a baby with you. And the only way to do all that is to catch the person who made you sick. I know our friends in Boston are doing everything they can, but I can't just sit around hoping for the best. I have to go help. We need to end this."

"But you're not even allowed to work this case."

"Not officially. But when has that ever stopped me?"

Maura knew there wasn't really any stopping Jane when she was determined. She took Jane's left hand in both of hers, feeling the shape of it, examining the ring that matched her own. "How soon will you leave?"

Jane placed a tender kiss on the top of Maura's head. "I'll stay until they release you from the hospital. I'll be here while you finish your key-whatever therapy and get all the rest of that poison out of your beautiful body, and I definitely want to see that weird heart thing back under control."

Maura felt encouraged. That meant they had at least a few more days together. "When I leave here, I'm going to a safe house. You'll want to know where that is, won't you?"

"Of course! I'll get you settled in there, and then I'll head back to Boston to finish up this case, okay? We'll still be able to talk, because you can call me from that phone Cavanaugh gave you. And I can visit sometimes, if it seems like it's taking forever. It's just a two-hour drive."

"Two hours? Only if you're speeding the whole way."

Jane grinned. "Would you expect anything less from me?"

Maura couldn't help but laugh. "Okay. But please don't let it take forever. And don't let him hurt you!"

Jane took both of Maura's hands, lacing their fingers together. "I promise you," she said. "When I find Hawthorne, he is not going to know what hit him."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Jane opened her eyes and tried to stretch, but she couldn't very well. Maura was still asleep, lying fully on top of her. It was safe to say she did not want Jane to leave.

Maura had finally been released from the hospital the previous day, her treatment finished and her internal organs still functioning. It would take some time for her to feel completely normal again. Her kidney had been damaged, but it was recovering, as was her heart. She had survived, and had been far more fortunate than most arsenic poisoning victims. She convinced Jane to stay with her during her first night in the police safe house (well, safe apartment), but now it was morning, and Jane had to go.

Jane savored the feeling of Maura in her arms as long as she could, until both her full bladder and her growing desire to murder Hawthorne became too much to bear. "Maura," she said softly, stroking her wife's hair. Maura stirred a little, opened her eyes, closed them again. "Hey, I know you need your rest, but I have to get ready to go." Maura's eyes flew back open and she lifted her head, looking at Jane with wide, gorgeous hazel eyes.

 _I can't leave her_ , Jane thought impulsively. _How can I go away and not be able to look at this beautiful face all the time? We'll just have to live in this apartment indefinitely_. But then she forced herself to be more logical.

"You have to at least let me get up and pee," Jane insisted. Maura slowly rolled off of her and sat up in bed, her appearance actually a little haggard, which was unusual for Maura even in the morning. She was still sitting there when Jane came back from the bathroom to get dressed.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Jane asked her gently.

Maura nodded. "I'm okay. I just don't want you to go."

"I know, honey. I don't want to go either. But we both know I have to."

Maura studied her carefully. "I need you to promise me you will stay safe no matter what. When I came to New Haven, I felt like I'd lost you. I was completely cut off from you for the first time since I've known you, and I was scared you wouldn't want me back even when you found out I was alive. Now that I have you back, I can't lose you again. You have to promise."

"I promise that I will do everything in my power to come back for you in one piece. And we won't be cut off this time, because we can talk on that phone Cavanaugh gave you." She gave Maura a kiss. "Now back up a second. You thought I wouldn't want you back?"

"I was afraid you would be too mad that I agreed to this. I knew I was hurting you, but I did it anyway." Maura blinked back tears, and Jane leaned down to kiss her cheek.

"Maura, I know you were just trying to protect me. I know you would never want to hurt me. I can't imagine you wanting to hurt anyone."

"And I was afraid that you would mourn my death and then you wouldn't be able to accept me as a living person again. Like Hope."

"Oh honey, I am nothing like Hope." She sat down on the bed and put her arms around her wife. "There is no way I could have felt anything other than pure ecstasy at realizing you were alive. I mean, yes, I was angry with Cavanaugh, but that was because I knew isolating you like this was harmful to you as well as to me." She brushed a tear from Maura's cheek. "I was completely wrecked without you. I kept praying that I would die so I could be with you again. Don't ever think for a second that I would _choose_ to be without you."

Maura nodded and put her face against Jane's shoulder. Jane held her close, realizing even more the emotional toll this whole thing had taken on Maura as well as on her. And she knew Cavanaugh wasn't really the one to blame.

It made her more determined than ever to put an end to the ordeal as quickly as possible.

XXX

After breakfast, Jane made sure Maura had everything she needed. She had the tablet Jane had purchased for her a few days earlier, she had her purse, and she had most of the cash Jane had gotten before leaving Boston. Although the New Haven Police Department was supposed to provide Maura with anything she needed while she was under their protection, Jane didn't like the idea of Maura being completely dependent on them. She gave Maura about a million kisses, promised again to be careful, and then hit the road back to Boston.

The first thing she did was go home to let her mother see that she was okay. Angela didn't want to let Jane leave the house again, but Jane convinced her that trying to catch Maura's killer was much healthier for her than wallowing around the house.

"We can go out and sprinkle Maura's ashes in the ocean whenever you're ready," Angela said plaintively while Jane got ready to meet Korsak.

"Let's get her killer first, Ma," Jane said. "I'm pretty sure that's what Maura would want."

She gave her mother a quick kiss and ran out to her car. She drove to the Dirty Robber, where she was meeting Korsak for lunch so he could talk to her about the case off the record. She was just feeding the meter when she felt something hit the back of her head, and the world went black.

XXX

When she came to, at first all she noticed was the splitting pain in the back of her head. She slowly became aware of the fact that she was in a moving vehicle, lying on the floorboard between the front and back seats. She tried to move, but her hands were cuffed behind her. She slowly turned her head to see Haley Hawthorne sitting in the backseat, arms wrapped tightly around her backpack, tears on her face.

 _I'm sorry_ , Haley mouthed when she saw Jane looking at her.

Jane turned her head again and saw Haley's father in the driver's seat, which was no surprise. What _was_ a surprise was that he was driving _her_ car. He was kidnapping her in her own damn car.

"Where," she said slowly, her voice coming out as just a croak at first. "Where are we going?"

"You're awake," remarked Hawthorne pleasantly. "We're going home."

"Where is home?"

"Home is where it all began. Isn't that right, Haley?" Haley just shook her head.

Jane blinked hard, trying to clear her head a little. She had to be on top of her game for this. "You killed my wife, didn't you?"

"I set you free, Jane. That farce of a marriage was keeping you from living a real life. You can have real love now, a real marriage. A family."

"No, see, I don't know what you want with me, but you made a giant mistake by killing her. If you'd kept her alive, you could have controlled me. Promise not to hurt her, and I'd have done anything. Now you don't have a bargaining chip. You can't frighten me by threatening to hurt me, because nothing can hurt as much as losing her. And you sure as hell can't control me by threatening to kill me. If I die, I get to be with her again. I don't give a shit."

"I don't think you want to go to Hell, do you, Jane?"

Jane gave a short, cold laugh. "You'll never convince me my wife is in Hell. But I would follow her there if I had to."

Hawthorne kept his eyes on the road, but she could see his jaw clenching. She looked at Haley, hating the discussion she was going to have to have in front of her, but the kid clearly already knew her father was nuts.

"Why did you set your house on fire?" she asked him.

He was quiet for so long, she began to think he wouldn't answer. But then he started in.

"My wife," he said, his voice wavering, "ruined our marriage. She turned out entire family into a mockery, a joke."

"Because she was sleeping with your sister."

His face turned deep red. "I was gone for over a year, serving our country. Fighting to make the world a better place for my children. She was upset that I was doing my second tour of duty, leaving her alone with two kids again, soon to be three. It was my idea for my sister to come stay with them. She was such a good aunt, I figured she could help out. Make things easier for my wife." He drove in silence for a few minutes. "I got the chance to get on a plane three days earlier than planned, so I could surprise my family. Meet my new baby boy for the first time. I got home, and no one looked happy to see me. They all looked at me like I was crashing their party. I went upstairs to unpack, and my sister's things were in my bedroom, with my wife's things. They were sharing a damn bed. _My_ bed. I didn't know my fucking sister was going to take my place while I was gone, trying to take over my wife and kids like they were hers. My baby cried whenever I tried to pick him up, but he would reach his arms out for my sister."

"Well, he didn't know you," Jane pointed out, struggling into a sitting position. "You'd been gone. If you didn't want that to happen, maybe you shouldn't have joined the military."

His right hand jumped out, lightning fast, and grabbed her by the hair, slamming her head against the console. Then he let go of her and continued like it hadn't happened. She scooted back, out of his reach.

"He would have gotten to know me, but my whole family was poisoned by that sickness, that infidelity. I felt like less than a man. My wife preferred a _woman_ to me. My children weren't my own anymore. I set the fire to kill all of us, including myself."

"So what happened? Why are you still here?"

"They were supposed to die in their sleep. I was the only one who would suffer. But Haley, she woke up. She started crying for help. I couldn't listen to her and just do nothing. I couldn't let her burn alive."

Jane looked at Haley. She was bent over her backpack, face hidden, shoulders shaking.

"I had to get her out," Hawthorne said, his voice breaking. "But I couldn't just drop her out the window. She was too small. I had to jump out holding her. So we both survived, and we had to try to make our own life, a life that was real. But I finally realized that in order to do that, our family needs to be complete. She needs a mother. I need a wife."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "And you thought _I_ would make a good candidate?"

"When I saw you, I knew you were perfect. You're a very beautiful woman, you know."

"Yeah, that's what my wife always told me."

Jane's head hit the door as the car pulled onto the shoulder without warning. Slamming it into park, Hawthorne undid his seatbelt, leaned between the seats, and grabbed Jane, pulling her towards him. He slapped her, hard, across the face.

"You do not have a wife," he told her between gritted teeth. "Do you understand that?" She nodded, trying to consider if it would be possible to head-butt him while the car was stopped, but he moved away too quickly. "Haley, could you help me move her to the passenger seat, now that she's awake?" he asked, his voice suddenly calm.

Haley reluctantly got out of the car and helped her father drag Jane out of the back and into the passenger seat, where they buckled her in with her hands securely behind her. Then they both returned to their spots, and Hawthorne pulled back onto the road.

"When Haley said she wanted to interview a female cop for her homework project, I thought that would be the perfect chance to get to know you," he continued, as if nothing had happened. "I thought we would go about things the usual way. We'd talk, I'd ask you out, we'd date for a while. I never meant for it to be like this."

"But then you found out I had Maura."

His jaw visibly clenched again. "You fell for that same trap women all over are falling for now, thinking you can make each other happy and you don't need a man. I tried to get you to understand that. I warned you that I was going to have to kill her if you didn't walk away on your own."

"Actually, you were a little vague with that message." She studied his face, trying to determine if he was entirely beyond reason yet. She decided to try. "What exactly is your plan for me? You can't just kidnap someone and expect her to be your new wife."

"I'm taking you home so you can relearn what a woman is supposed to be. I'm going to show you what it is to be a wife and mother."

"I already _was_ a wife. And I was going to be a mother. Anyway, where the hell is 'home?'"

"It's the house my wife and I had built in Bedford when we were first married. We lived there until I went back to active duty after 9/11. We always said we'd come back someday, so we never sold it. We just rented it out. That's why I took the job in Boston last year, so we could finally be close to home again. I was hoping we could move back in soon, as soon as our family was complete again. We're almost there now."

Jane watched as they drove through the winding streets of a subdivision not unlike the ones their recent murder victims in Boston had lived in.

"So why did you kill all those families?" she asked. "I know about the other ones, from before you moved to Boston. If your grudge is against lesbians, why kill straight couples?"

"They were families like mine. Families that were living a lie. Women who cared more about other women than about their husbands or children. Their husbands didn't even know."

"Ashley Bibler was talking to her ex-girlfriend, but she wasn't getting back together with her. Carol Martin was straight. She just sponsored the Gay-Straight Alliance at her school. That doesn't make her gay."

"Once women get exposed to that environment, it poisons their thinking. My wife was straight when I married her."

"I'm betting she wasn't."

His hand lashed out again, striking her. _I've got to start watching my mouth_ , she thought. _I promised Maura I'd keep myself safe. She's going to kill me when she finds out I goaded this bastard into kicking my ass._

Hawthorne pulled the car into the driveway of a blue house, drove into the garage, and closed the door behind them. She braced herself as he got out and walked around to her door, hoping to get the chance to kick or head-butt him, but she should have known better. He was a cop. He knew how to handle unruly suspects. He guided her from behind, painfully gripping her handcuffs, forcing her to walk into the house. Haley followed at a distance. They walked through a kitchen and down the basement stairs, to a small, unfinished room with no furniture or windows.

"Haley," Hawthorne said sweetly, as he pushed Jane roughly to the floor. "Could you watch her for a moment while I get something?"

Haley shuffled into the room and her father went upstairs.

"Haley, you don't have to do this," Jane said desperately. "If you help me get away, I can get help. You don't have to stay here with him."

Haley shook her head. "He's my dad."

"I know, honey, but your dad is sick. It's not healthy for you to be with him. Do you have other family you can live with?"

She shrugged. "My grandparents on my mom's side are nice, but I haven't seen them in a few years."

"We can find them for you. If you help me, we can both get away, get help for your dad, and get you into a safer environment."

Haley shook her head. "I can't. He'll be mad."

They heard footsteps on the stairs, and Haley stopped talking. Hawthorne came down with a length of rope and held Jane down while Haley wound the rope around Jane's ankles. Jane watched her, silently willing her to leave the rope loose so she could escape, but Haley did as her father wanted and tied the rope securely. Then father and daughter left the room, turning the lights out and locking the door behind them. The room was entirely black now. If she could have put her hand in front of her face, she wouldn't be able to see it. Once the Hawthornes had retreated, she couldn't hear anything either. _Sensory deprivation_. He was using a torture technique on her, trying to break her. Right now the only sensation she had was the feel of the concrete floor beneath her body.

Jane was scared, there was no point in denying that, but she was not one to simply resign herself to a bad situation. Slowly, uncomfortably, she wriggled until she found a wall. She turned her back to the wall and moved her cuffed hands along it, desperately feeling for something other than smooth concrete, but there was nothing. So she scooted over a few feet and tried again. She knew Hawthorne would have thought of everything, knew it was highly unlikely that she would find a way to get herself out under these circumstances.

But she had to try.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

By late afternoon, Maura was getting very anxious. She had expected Jane to call not long after her lunch meeting with Korsak, but she hadn't, and she wasn't answering her phone either. She gave it as much time as she could bear, acknowledging that Jane might just be very busy, and then she called Cavanaugh.

"Have you heard from Jane?" she asked as soon as he answered. "She called me when she first got to Boston, but I haven't heard from her since, and she's not answering her phone. The last time I tried, it went straight to voicemail, which isn't like her at all. She _never_ turns her phone off."

"Angela called me earlier asking the same thing. Jane told her she was going to have lunch with Korsak at the Dirty Robber, but she never showed. They think she's driven off again. Korsak's out looking for her; he's afraid she's suicidal."

"Well she's definitely not suicidal, and she isn't just driving around either. I'm afraid something's happened to her."

"Or she found out something about Hawthorne and ran off on her own to deal with him."

"She wouldn't do that. If she knew something, she'd get someone to go with her. She promised me she'd be careful."

"I'll see what I can find out, okay? She's probably fine. She's probably following some lead and doesn't want anyone to know because she's going against orders."

 _She'd want_ me _to know_ , Maura thought as she hung up.

She paced around her bedroom, the only room in the apartment where she could get privacy since there was an officer in the living room. Supposing Hawthorne had gotten to Jane, where might he take her? Probably not to his home in Boston that everyone knew about, because they'd be too easy to find there. She got out her new tablet and started searching to see if he owned any other property. Her first thought was that he might go back to the house that had burned down, if it had been rebuilt, but that was a dead end. The house had been razed after the fire. Several years later, someone had purchased the lot and built a completely different house there. She even found a newspaper article where the family living in the new house talked about the "unique features" they had installed and mentioned the lot's tragic history.

For a moment she was stymied, but then she had another thought: where had Hawthorne's family lived _before_ they moved to Maryland? This was a more difficult search, and no matter what she tried, she couldn't find anything. Finally, she broke down and called Nina.

"Nina, you can't say anything to anyone, but it's Maura," she said quickly when Nina answered the phone.

There was a pause. "Um…could you say that again?"

"It's Maura. I'm sorry. I didn't die. Cavanaugh wanted me to pretend I was dead so the person who tried to kill me wouldn't try again, and I'm not supposed to talk to anyone, but I really need your help."

"Does…does Jane know?"

"She didn't at first, but she knows now, and that's what I'm calling you about. I can't get a hold of her, and I'm worried Officer Hawthorne may have taken her."

"How do you know?"

"I don't _know_ , but I do know that he's the main suspect, and I also know it's very unlike Jane to suddenly become unreachable. I'm not sure Cavanaugh is taking this seriously enough, but he doesn't know her like I do. That's why I need your help. Could you possibly find out if Hawthorne owns any property other than his house in Boston?"

"Sure." Maura could hear her typing. "Um, it says he's owned a house in Bedford since 1998."

"That's the year Haley was born," Maura said softly. "Could you give me the address of that house?"

"Yes, it's 3114 Clover Lane."

"Thanks. Could you also send it to Korsak? I know he's looking for Jane, although he thinks she's driving around on her own. Just don't tell him about talking to me."

"Okay. And um, it was really nice to hear from you. I can't wait to see you again."

"Thank you, Nina. Hopefully that will be very soon!"

She hung up and immediately called Cavanaugh to tell him her idea for where Jane might be. He did not sound encouraging.

"That may be useful information if we actually determine she's been taken, Dr. Isles, but we still don't know that. Her car isn't at home, or at the Dirty Robber, or at the station. It looks like she's driven off somewhere, and it may be ill-advised, but it doesn't mean she's in danger."

"You could just go to the house and check."

"We will if know there's a good reason. She's only been MIA for a few hours; my guess is, you'll hear from her soon. You should be resting, Dr. Isles."

Maura was frustrated when she hung up the phone. She didn't know if Jane was in danger or not, and she didn't know if the house in Bedford was where she would be if she were. But she wanted very much to test her hypothesis, and if no one else was going to check the house, then she was going to have to do it herself.

She glanced into the living room. The officer on duty was watching some sort of sporting event on TV and seemed pretty absorbed. She slipped back into the bedroom and looked up the nearest car rental facility. Then she quietly packed what few things she had with her, put on her coat and shoes, and climbed out the window, feeling grateful that the apartment was on the first floor.

She stumbled a little and paused for a moment in the frosty air, trying to get her bearings. She still felt weak from both her poisoning and the chelation therapy. Both poison and medicine had ruined her appetite, so she'd lost weight over the past two weeks, which also took away some of her strength. She also knew that going on a solo rescue mission was a bit out of her league even in the best of circumstances. But she had never hesitated to run towards Jane when Jane was in danger, and she certainly wasn't going to start now. So, with her purse on her arm and her suitcase rolling behind her, she set off on foot to rent a car.

She ran into a little bit of a snag at the car rental place. Apparently, paying for rental cars with cash was just not done, so she finally had to relent and let them put her credit card on file as long as they promised not to actually run it unless they absolutely had to. The man behind the counter was very confused as to why a person with a perfectly good credit card was so bent on paying with cash, and Maura didn't really want to explain that she was supposed to be dead at the moment. While she waited for everything to be processed, she looked up the house she was going to on her tablet and carefully committed the directions to memory. Finally, her car was ready and she was on her way.

It felt good to be behind the wheel again, actually in control of something after her time in the hospital and in the police safe house. Maura loved driving, but even before her "death," Maura usually let Jane drive when they were together. Letting Jane take the wheel was a lot easier than listen to her complain about how slow Maura's driving was. Maura didn't actually drive slowly; she always went exactly at the speed limit. It was just that the speed limit wasn't fast enough for Jane.

It wasn't fast enough for Maura either today. Jane had possibly been missing for hours at this point, and there was no telling what Hawthorne was doing to her. Every time her mind ran through the possibilities, Maura found her foot pressing the gas even harder. Two hours after leaving New Haven, she found herself at the address Nina had given her. She parked her car on the street and got out, realizing she had no plan for what to do next. The sun had been setting when she left New Haven, and it was now quite dark, but she could see lights on in the house. She couldn't very well just knock on the door and ask him to hand over her wife, however. She slowly crept around the back of the house to try to get a feel for the situation. She wasn't a cop, so she didn't need a warrant. She was still trespassing, of course, but at least she was trespassing as a civilian.

There was a door in the back of the garage, and the door had a window in it, so she went over to look in. There was a very dim light on in the garage, allowing her to just make out the car that was sitting inside. It looked like Jane's car. Her heart started pounding before she remembered that Hawthorne probably also had a car like that. She squinted, trying to make out the license plate numbers. She couldn't, but she could see a dent on the left side of the bumper that looked exactly like a dent Jane's car had. She decided a cop would consider that to be probable cause.

She tried the door, but it was locked. She looked around desperately for something to break the window with. There was a small shed et the edge of the yard; maybe it would have something. She went over and opened the door. She couldn't see a damn thing, and the crappy little flip phone Cavanaugh had left her didn't have a flashlight, but she wasn't giving up. She shuffled along the floor of the shed, feeling with both hands. She found a shovel, but that might be too much. Her feet found a croquet set. That might work, but then she found something better: a golf club. Seizing the club, she hurried back to the garage and broke the window. Carefully she cleared the glass from around the edges before reaching through to unlock the door, and then she was inside.

The door going from the garage to the house was unlocked. No surprise there. She'd autopsied more than one murder victim who had met their demise due to a failure to realize how easy it is to break in through an attached garage. She would have thought a cop might know better, but it was good for her that he didn't. She stepped into a kitchen that looked like it didn't get much use, still clutching the golf club. She stood still for a minute, listening, and faintly heard a man's voice coming from beyond a closed door. She opened the door and started slowly making her way down a flight of stairs into a partially finished basement. The voice was coming from a room to the right of the staircase.

"It's about behavior," she heard him saying. "When you're able to show good behavior, you won't have to stay here in the dark anymore. Eventually, I won't even have to restrain you."

Maura struggled to keep her breathing even. Jane was being restrained in the dark? She reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Jane and Hawthorne through a half-open door. There were in a small, windowless, unfinished room, and both had their backs to her. The light was on for now at least. Jane was lying on the floor with her hands cuffed behind her and her ankles bound with rope, Hawthorne kneeling behind her. Maura had to stop herself from crying out when she noticed blood in Jane's hair. Just as bad was the fact that Hawthorne kept trying to stroke her head almost lovingly. Jane kept jerking her head away from him, and he would keep reaching for her anyway.

"Maybe soon," he said, bringing his face down close to hers, "we can make a baby together."

At that remark, all thoughts flew out of Maura's head. In one movement, she pushed the door open, raised the golf club, and brought it down on Hawthorne's head. He crumpled forwards onto Jane and Maura shoved him onto the floor, not wanting him to touch Jane for another second.

Jane turned her head quickly to see what had happened. " _Maura?!_ " she cried in disbelief.

Maura looked down at Hawthorne. He was clearly stunned by the blow, but he was still conscious. He looked up at her, eyes wide like he was seeing a ghost—and he may have thought he was. She raised the club and hit him again, this time aiming for his temple so he would black out. He did. She turned back to Jane, who was gaping at her.

"Look at you, Wonder Woman," she rasped.

"Jane, are you okay?" Maura asked breathlessly, dropping to her knees beside her wife. She could see that Jane's face looked bruised, and it made her furious.

"I'm okay," Jane promised. "But what the hell are you doing here? How did you even find me?"

"I tried to think like a detective. Your phone was off, so I knew something was wrong, but Cavanaugh wouldn't listen to me. So I started thinking about where Hawthorne would take you, and I did what you do. I called Nina to see if he had any other property. She told me about this place, so I came to see if you were here." She laid the golf club across her knees and began unknotting the rope around Jane's ankles.

"I bet Nina was surprised to hear from you."

"She was, but she promised not to tell anyone. What did he do to you? Did he hurt you?"

"Nah. I mean, he did what you just did to him, and he hit me a few times, but nothing serious."

Maura finished removing the rope from Jane's ankles and then helped her into a sitting position before tenderly kissing the bruises on her face.

"Haley's here somewhere," Jane said softly. "I'm not entirely sure what her deal is. Do you have your phone? You should call for backup."

Maura quickly pulled her phone from her pocket and called 911, keeping her arm around Jane and her eyes on Hawthorne while talking to the dispatcher.

"The police are on their way," she said when she hung up. Her fingers trailed down Jane's back to where her hands were cuffed. "I wish I had a key for these."

"I'm sure he does," Jane said, nodded her head towards Hawthorne's inert form. Maura started to move towards him to search his pockets, but Jane stopped her. "I don't really want you that close to him," she said.

Suddenly they heard a scream coming from the staircase. "Daddy!" Haley cried, running to his side. "You killed him!"

"He's not dead," Maura promised. "I just rendered him temporarily unconscious."

Haley looked up and seemed to fully register who she was seeing. "I thought…I thought you died."

"She did. And now she's back to avenge her murder," Jane said drily. "If you had nothing to do with it, you should be safe."

Haley frowned, her hand on her dad's shoulder. "I didn't know he did anything like that until I heard you say it. I kept thinking he would say you were wrong, that he didn't kill anyone, but he never denied any of it. I had no idea _he_ set the fire at our house." Tears streamed down her face.

"Sometimes the people we love do horrible things without us knowing," Jane said gently. "It doesn't mean you have to be like him."

"I never understood why it was supposed to be wrong," Haley said softly. "Two women being together, I mean. We were happy when my dad was in Iraq. My mom and my aunt were happy together, and they took good care of my brothers and me. I missed my dad, but sometimes I wished he wouldn't come back, because I didn't want my aunt to go away. And then my aunt told me that we would have her no matter what." She looked down at her father. "But then he came back, and I lost everyone else. He's all I have left."

"I understand," said Jane. "And I'm sorry that he has to go to jail now. But there's still time for you to do the right thing. Do you happen to know where the handcuff key is?"

Haley continued to look at her father, as if struggling with herself. Finally she reached into his pocket and withdrew a keyring, handing it to Maura, who quickly located the small key and used it to free Jane's hands. Jane immediately embraced her wife.

"Let's get out of this awful room," she suggested.

XXX

"So, you told me how you knew I was here, but how did _you_ get here?" Jane asked. They were huddled together in the back of an ambulance, legs dangling, a blanket wrapped around Jane. The quiet street was now awash in the red and blue glow of police lights. Hawthorne was handcuffed in a second ambulance, paramedics looking over his head injuries. Local police officers were talking to Haley.

"I rented a car with the cash you gave me. It's right over there." She pointed. "They still made me give them my credit card information, though."

"How did you even get to the car rental place? You were supposed to be under police protection."

Maura shrugged. "I just jumped out a window. I was only on the first floor."

Jane chuckled, giving her an incredulous look. "You never cease to amaze me."

Another car drove up and Korsak and Frankie got out, scanning the crowd for Jane.

"I guess it doesn't need to be a secret anymore that I'm alive," Maura said. She smiled and waved when the men froze in their tracks, staring at her.

"Yeah, sorry," Jane told them. "I couldn't tell you, but Maura's not dead."

"I _could_ have died," Maura said apologetically. "But I didn't."

Korsak and Frankie took turns hugging Jane and Maura. "I put a BOLO on your vehicle when you didn't show up to meet me," Korsak told Jane. "After that stunt you pulled, leaving town right after the funeral without telling anyone, I was afraid you were going to do something crazy."

"Everyone was," said Frankie. "People kept saying they couldn't even picture Jane without Maura. We didn't know what you'd do."

"Did you know all along the Doc was alive?" Korsak asked her, still looking at Maura in awe.

"Nah. I figured it out after the funeral. That was why I left town, actually. I had to go see her." Jane kissed Maura's cheek. "They had her hidden away in New Haven. But then tonight she figured out something had happened to me, so she pieced together where I was, ran away from police protection, rented a car, came after me, and took Hawthorne out with a golf club. Which I think is very badass." She put her lips to Maura's ear. "And very hot," she added quietly. Maura grinned.

Frankie and Korsak went to talk to the local cops, and Maura leaned against Jane, feeling exhausted now that her adrenaline rush was wearing off.

"That's bastard's lucky it was you with the golf club instead of me," Jane said. "I would have killed him. That asshole tried to kill you, and he was proud of it. If you _were_ dead, I'd get in that ambulance and just brain him. They wouldn't be able to stop me."

"Do you wish I _had_ killed him?"

"No. Not at all. You're a doctor. I know you wouldn't feel good about yourself if you killed someone. And, maybe it's better for Haley this way."

Maura watched Haley getting into a police car. "Do you think she'll be okay?" she asked Jane.

Jane thought for a minute. "I really don't know," she said truthfully. "She could go either way. I think she's basically a good kid, and clearly she remembers a time in her life when she was part of a healthy family. Maybe if they get her to a good home, she'll turn out great. Maybe she'll save people, just like she told me she wanted to do. But then again, she's been under the influence of a really fucked up man for most of her life, and she helped him with kidnapping me and restraining me. She didn't seem like she enjoyed it, but still, she did it, and she's going to have that on her head for the rest of her life. She could end up going down a very bad road."

"I hope she'll get the help she needs," said Maura, struggling to hold her eyes open. She felt like she could sleep for days when she finally found a bed.

Jane looked down at her. "You were so not up to doing what you did today."

"But I had to." She smiled at Jane. "You have to go to the hospital and get that head wound checked out. But after that, we can finally go home."

Jane lit up. "Yes! _Home!_ And when you're feeling better, we can throw you a big 'welcome back from the dead' party."

Maura giggled. "I'm glad I don't have to be dead anymore. It's the most boring thing I've ever done." She snuggled closer to Jane, wrapping her arms around her. "I wish you hadn't been kidnapped, but since you were, I'm glad I got to save you for a change."

"Mmm. It's not really for a change. You save me every day."

Maura lifted her head up, puzzled. "From what?"

Jane smiled at her, the special smile she only had for Maura. "From being the person I would have been if I'd never met you."


	21. Chapter 21

Epilogue

It took a couple of months for Maura to feel healthy enough to start going through IVF. It took longer than that for Jane to be able to look at her normally again, to just see her as Maura who was always there, and not Maura who she thought she had lost. Everyone had been overjoyed when Maura came back, and Maura seemed continually surprised by the fact that no one was mad at her. Everyone was mad at the situation of course, and Angela was furious with Jane for not telling her immediately when she realized Maura was alive, but no one had the slightest bit of anger towards Maura. In fact, they all seemed to be going out of their way to let Maura know how much they appreciated her, to compliment her on every little thing.

"I keep telling you," Jane had said, " _everybody_ loves you."

The third IVF cycle was the one that stuck. Jane had been expecting it to take longer than that, had prepared herself for months and months of egg harvesting and fertilizing and implanting. She had braced herself for the possibility that it would never work, had prepared what she would say to Maura when she decided it was time to stop going down this road. When Maura pulled Jane into her office one day and locked the door, Jane thought she was just horny. She had not expected the proffered pregnancy test with the little plus sign on it that meant a _zygote_ (as Maura insisted on calling it) made from one of Jane's eggs had successfully made its home in Maura's uterus. Nor had she expected the rush of emotion that followed, emotions that never really went away.

The mingled terror and ecstasy only grew over time as the reality of the situation became harder to ignore. They really _were_ having a baby. This wasn't just a game they were playing. There was a new human being coming into existence who would never have been alive at all if it weren't for them. They were responsible for giving this human the best life possible. If this human's life didn't turn out well, even for reasons beyond their control, it was still going to be _their_ fault because _they_ were the ones who decided a new human should be created in this time and place.

She loved seeing Maura pregnant, even though it also made her a nervous wreck. The second trimester was her favorite. Maura was visibly pregnant and they could feel the baby kick, but she wasn't big enough yet to be terribly uncomfortable. Jane loved the feeling of holding Maura and the baby in her arms, of having her whole world right there, easy to protect.

Jane was out in the field when Maura went into labor, interviewing a possible witness with Frankie. When she saw Maura calling, she went outside to answer it. She was very careful to always take Maura's calls now that Maura was full term.

"My water just broke," Maura had told her casually, as if she were just calling with test results.

"What? Where are you?" Jane had asked, already running to the car.

"I'm in the autopsy room. I'm just going to clean up here and then I'll be ready to go."

"Stay where you are! I'll be right there!" Jane had shouted as she started her car, although she really didn't know why she said that. Where did she think was Maura going to go?

She had arrived at the station to find Maura calmly sitting on the couch in her office, her hospital bag at her feet. By the time it occurred to Jane that she had abandoned Frankie in the field with no transportation, they were already at the hospital and he had long since called Nina to pick him up.

Their baby girl, Charlotte Angela, made her debut on March 4, 2016, at 7:15 pm. She came out with a head full of dark hair and a cry so loud it could be heard down the hall. Every time she started in again with her ear-splitting wails, everyone would look at Jane like it was her fault.

"I wonder how long it will take for her to get a raspy voice from yelling all the time," Frankie mused.

"I do not have a raspy voice from yelling all the time!" Jane insisted.

Nobody said anything.

Now she was three months old, and they had just had her "baby blessing" ceremony, which was a compromise of sorts. Angela had been bugging them about a christening since before Charlotte was even born, even though Jane tried to tell her it couldn't happen. For one thing, Jane doubted the family priest would feel comfortable baptizing a baby with two mommies. For another, they weren't planning to raise Charlotte in the Catholic faith. Maura wasn't Catholic, and Jane wasn't very observant. But Jane knew the ceremony was more about welcoming the baby into the family than anything else, and it did feel weird doing nothing. Every baby that had ever been born into her family had been christened. It was Maura who read about baby blessing ceremonies, which were basically christenings that didn't have to adhere to any particular religious faith, and suggested they have one of those. It was a win-win: Maura got to buy a fancy gown for the baby (the price of which Jane didn't even want to know), Angela got to take a million pictures of Charlotte in the gown, and they all got to enjoy a fun little ceremony in a Unitarian church followed by a party at home.

After the party, Maura took the baby upstairs to change her, and Jane helped her mother wash the dishes. Although Jane had acted like she was just doing the ceremony for everyone else, the truth was that she was already planning to frame one of the many pictures that had been taken of her and Maura with Charlotte at the church. She wanted to put it on her desk at work, next to the wedding picture.

"Thanks for helping with the party and everything," Jane told her mother while carefully putting crystal goblets back in the cupboard.

"Please, you know I love doing this kind of thing," said Angela. "Especially for my first granddaughter."

There was no question that Angela was willing to do anything for her grandbaby. She had even quit her job at the Dirty Robber to become Charlotte's nanny, as they needed someone who could be on call around the clock, and it made more sense to hire her than it did to have a stranger move in.

"She's very lucky to have you as a grandma," Jane said, planting a kiss on her mother's cheek.

"Janie." Angela smiled, her eyes misty. "I love seeing you as a mother. I always knew you'd make a good one if you could just settle down."

"Thanks. I feel like I owe you an apology, but I'm not sure what for."

"Apology accepted."

Jane smiled and shook her head, trying to figure out where the hell the punch bowl was supposed to go. She didn't even know they _had_ a punch bowl before today.

"Give me that," said Angela. "You look tired."

"Yeah, well, it's been a busy day. I'm gonna go up and see how my girls are doing."

She paused outside of the bedroom and smiled when she heard Maura singing softly to the baby. She did that often while nursing, and Jane loved to just stand out in the hallway and listen. She sounded so sweet, so loving, and so _happy_. Being a mother made Maura unbelievably happy.

Jane stepped into the room when Maura finished the song. Maura was sitting in the glider she'd gotten for this purpose, a special pillow under her arm, Charlotte sucking away on a glorious boob. That was something Jane was still getting used to. On the one hand, it was kind of disappointing that she had to give up her boob privileges to a baby for the time being. On the other hand, it was really fucking amazing that Maura could feed the kid out of her boobs. She knew it was a perfectly normal thing that mothers everywhere did. Logically, she knew that. But every time she saw Maura do it, she felt like she was witnessing something new and magical that only Maura could do.

Maura looked up and smiled when she saw that Jane had entered the room. "She's almost done," she said. "I think she's more than ready for her nap."

"I think all three of us are going to need one today," Jane said. She looked at the tiny dress Maura had changed Charlotte into. It was much more casual than the silk gown she'd worn earlier, but was undoubtedly still expensive. Jane tried not to think about how much money was being invested in things the baby would only use for a little while (and probably puke on). Maura certainly didn't hold back in her shopping, and her parents kept sending them fancy European baby gifts. Jane had insisted that most large things at least be gender-neutral so they could reuse them for the next baby whether it was a boy or a girl. She kind of hoped they'd have another girl so they could reuse the clothes as well, but who was she kidding? Maura was probably going to buy the next baby a whole new wardrobe anyway.

Above Maura's exposed breast, her six tally mark scars were faintly visible. They had faded a lot in the three years since she'd gotten them, thankfully. Now you had to look closely to even see what they were. Maura had grown less concerned with keeping them completely covered all the time in public. While casual observers might notice that she had some sort of scarring on her chest, they likely wouldn't be able to discern the deliberate nature of it. That had always been the thing Maura found most humiliating: the evidence that someone had treated her as a possession, cutting her skin to keep track of how many times he had raped her.

Jane was glad the scars were fading, and she hoped they would fade more, but one thing she knew for certain was that this baby had a very strong mommy.

"Here, I can burp her," Jane said when Charlotte had finished feeding. She grabbed the fancy burp cloth Maura had been using (oh yes, even those were designer; this baby was puking in style) and took the baby while Maura fastened herself back up and curled up on the bed. Jane walked back and forth, patting Charlotte's back, and as she did so, she took in the tired but content expression on Maura's face. It had been over a year since the horrible experience where she thought she had lost Maura, and she vividly remembered the terrible ache, the feeling of her arms being empty. They felt quite full now with both an amazing wife and a beautiful daughter to fit in them. She hoped to feel this way for the rest of her life.

Once Charlotte was burped and had dozed off, Jane got in bed with Maura and put Charlotte between them so they could both admire her. They had done this often since Charlotte's birth, especially in the early days, when they rarely had the energy to do anything else. They didn't sleep like this—eventually they would move Charlotte to her bassinet beside the bed—but it was nice to just keep her between them for a bit so they could both look at her, marvel over her. Jane took her little hand and thought about how much she'd grown in three short months. She still had a mess of dark hair, and her eyes had turned green. Jane knew she was biased, but she was pretty sure this was the most beautiful baby ever.

"She's perfect," Jane murmured, leaning forward to kiss the baby's hand.

"She is," Maura agreed, taking Charlotte's other hand. Her eyes moved from Charlotte to Jane. "She looks a lot like you."

"And a little like you. Her eyes are green, and yours are greenish."

"Well, she gets that from the sperm donor."

"I know, but I like to imagine it's from you. And it kind of is, because we chose a donor with some of your traits." Jane ran her fingers over her daughter's soft hair. "The next one will look just like you. It won't have much choice."

"Which is what you planned all along, isn't it?" said Maura with an amused smile.

"Pretty much."

Maura stroked the back of the sleeping baby's hand. "You know what I love about us as parents?"

"What?"

"Even though Charlotte has two mothers instead of a mother and a father, we're so different from each other, we still provide her with a good balance."

"Of course we do. This girl's going to be good at science _and_ sports."

"Well, she won't necessarily have an aptitude for everything we teach her, but at least we _can_ teach her."

"She has two mommies who love her more than anything in the world, and who love each other. That's the most important thing." Jane stroked Charlotte's fingers with her thumb. "I still can't believe we made this. A person."

"Imagine if we'd never admitted we loved each other. She wouldn't even exist."

"Mm. A lot of things would be wrong with the world, if we'd never gotten together." Jane looked from Maura to Charlotte, her heart feeling, as was usual these days, like it was going to explode. "I think I want to do this next time. Carry the baby, I mean."

Maura's eyes widened. "You do?"

"Yeah. I want to see what it's like. And I was kind of jealous that you could feel her kick before I did."

"A lot of it isn't fun, though."

"I know. I was the one holding your hair back while you threw up. Well, some of the time. You puked a lot in the beginning. I couldn't be there _all_ the time." Maura giggled. "But seriously, that's part of why I want to do it. I know being pregnant and giving birth are hard on the body, and your gorgeous body already went through it once. I don't want to put you through that again. I think I'm tough enough to handle it." She flexed a muscle to prove her point.

"You'd have to go on desk duty for the whole pregnancy," Maura warned her. "I'm not letting you take our baby out in the field."

"I know. But it wouldn't be so bad. I'd get off a little earlier, have more time to spend with Charlie."

Maura smiled. "I think I'd love to see you pregnant."

"I kind of liked the way things worked out this time, too. I'm her biological mother, but you're her birth mother. I want to do the reverse next time."

"I like that idea. Let's do it."

"Okay then. I'm gonna move her so we can nap." Jane carefully scooped Charlotte up and carried her to the bassinet that stood next to Maura's side of the bed, gently placing her inside. Maura turned over on her right side, facing the bassinet. Jane got back in bed and snuggled up to her wife, spooning her. It wasn't quite the same as when Charlotte was still inside Maura, but at least she still had them both right here.

She had thought it was reckless to love someone as much as she loved Maura, and now there were two people she loved that much. In another few years, if all went well, there would be three. She had definitely passed the point of recklessness now, to have so much of her heart in other people's bodies.

But she didn't think she'd want it any other way.

 **That's the end! Thank you so much to everyone who read, followed, and reviewed. You have made the experience a pleasure! If you enjoyed this story, please look for the novel adaptation, "Beloved Wife - A Detective Amy Sadler Mystery: Book Two," which is for sale in paperback and Kindle editions all over the world! Links in my profile!**

 **If you'd like to read more details of Maura's pregnancy from this story, you can get them in my story "With Child," now complete! The official sequel, "Facing the Shadows," is also complete!**


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